


Will Charity and the Curse of The Red Sun

by ArthurTheAndroid (CaptainCrozier), CaptainCrozier



Category: The Adventurer: The Curse of the Midas Box (2014)
Genre: Abyssinia - Freeform, Adventure & Romance, Amnesia, Amulets, Ancient Egyptian Deities, Ancient Priestesses, Ancient Temples, Brawls, Breaking The Rules, Caravans, Claustrophobia, Curses, Dashing Captains, Deity's possessing people and being insane with power, Destiny and Trying to Resist It, Drowning, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fake Marriage, Family Reunions, Flashbacks, GBH, Gratuitous Shirtless Scenes, Hearing Voices, Heroic Rescues, Highwaymen, Horseback Riding, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Injuries (various), Internal Conflict, Lambton worm, Living in the wild, Loss of Virginity, Magical Pregnancy, Magicians, Minor Character Death, Mummies, Necromancy, Out of Body Experiences, Pagan Weddings, Possession, Pyramids, References to Shakespeare, Sex In A Crypt, Sex in a Cavern, Shamans, Situations where sadly there is only one bed, Strange Artefacts, Suicide (minor character), Tragedy, Undead, Underground caverns, Variations on Ancient Egyptian Religion, Victorian Attitudes, Visions, White Magic, Whump, Witches, british colonialists, but not before a ton of whump, capture and torment with whump, chase scenes, classic gothic tropes, corsets, disguises, harvest festivals, masqued balls, mild PTSD, more ghouls, more undead, nasty wounds, secret insecurities and low self esteem, spells and talismans, spooks and ghouls, tropes galore, variations on celtic mythology, victorian menswear, wartime experiences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:00:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 44
Words: 155,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22336687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainCrozier/pseuds/ArthurTheAndroid, https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainCrozier/pseuds/CaptainCrozier
Summary: Elsie Fitzjames, the spinister daughter of the landowner and soon to be foreign secretary Rupert is content to live a quiet life at the estate tending her herbs and flowers, but her world is shattered when it is decided she must marry for money and influence to help her father's political career. Fortunately Elsie has two things on her side, a valuable family heirloom which some believe is cursed, and the unexpected help of an equally unexpected and very charming visitor.Enter Captain Will Charity, and just in the nick of time, because Elsie is about to discover that the world outside of the estate is filled with dangerous adventures.
Relationships: Will Charity/OFC
Comments: 373
Kudos: 72





	1. Chapter 1

_Dear Mama_

_Forgive me please for the long pause in our correspondence, though I am sure you understand the necessity for caution in these last few months. It seems to me I ought to have trusted you from the offset and never doubted for a moment that your motives were as pure and well aligned with our heritage and my own priorities as ever. As it is, having watched the old year fade in confusion and darkness, only to greet the new, alive once more with sight of the first pale buds of spring, I am certain that the year 1886, and indeed my future entire, will be a happy one._

_Events did not perhaps, unfold as you originally planned them, but I feel the outcome will please you. I am grateful, grateful both to you and to that force of Nature Herself whom you introduced to my world at my loneliest hour. I speak of course, of Captain William Charity…_

‘Miss Eleanor!’

Elsie almost dropped her pestle at the housekeeper’s shrill call, but managed instead to bundle the offending item and its mortar back into the open cupboard by her side. To be caught amongst the outhouses of the stables of an afternoon would cause her to fall foul of her father’s temper should it be reported by the servants, but if she was witnessed participating in what he coldly termed her ‘pagan practices,’ she would find herself firmly restricted to the house. She nudged a basket of freshly picked herbs from the gardens under the table with a foot and went to brace herself in the doorway in time to collide with Mrs Pence.

‘There you are,’ the stout woman tried to peer behind her charge, ‘And what have you been doing, young lady? I smell lavender!’

‘I picked some flowers earlier,’ Elsie said, arms folded as the Housekeeper’s monstrous bosom tried to push past her, but the young mistress of the house was not for moving.

‘Hmm,’ Pence said. ‘I warned your mother that that garden was an unnecessary indulgence. Lord above only knows what you are growing in there. Lavender will be the least of it!’

‘Is there something you wanted?’ she nonchalantly rubbed a green stain at her cuff.

‘Your father needs you back inside and cleaned up neat before dinner, there’s a visitor and you’re to dress for the occasion.’

‘Who is it?’ Elsie’s confidence wavered, ‘Oh no… It’s not…?’

‘Not his Lordship no, though that time will soon come I think,’ the housekeeper replied smugly, ‘There was some correspondence this morning about which your dear papa was quite thrilled, he will wish to show you!’

‘Let’s hope it isn’t what you suspect,’ Elsie said already feeling the tug of an unwanted future beyond the homely farm estate.

‘Oh, but it will be! His crest was stamped upon the back in wax!’

‘Wonderful,’ Elsie said dryly. ‘Still, it could be a missive imparting very little of any import, I’ve seen father excited over the most boring things. It could be nothing at all. Perhaps his Lordship writes to offer him help with his latest ambitions in the House and it has nothing to do with me.’

‘Come, come, he was quite enamoured of you on his last trip.’

Elsie repressed a shudder. His Lordship was sixty-five if he was a day, and hardly well preserved. The memory of his moist and pudgy hand on hers made her skin crawl.

‘Perhaps he has something to offer both of you,’ Pence said happily, away in her own world of fantasy now, ‘What a marvel that would be. Your father is such a fine politician, and if he is to become foreign secretary, it would only be right to see you attached to the very best society had to offer.’

‘You mean the richest. It does not always equate with best.’

‘Such a sour tongue. Don’t be ungrateful. I can see that if it _is_ he who writes for your hand, then it is not soon enough. You are becoming bitter with age, you’re not a child anymore, not even a girl, but a grown woman advancing in her years.’

‘I’m hardly ancient, Pence.’

‘You aren’t young either. And it will only get worse. No-one shall want you soon. Passing your days out here alone, in the sun, spoiling your complexion, wrecking your clothes, forgetting your lessons and your ettiquette. You ought to have been married at eighteen, like your mama, instead you ruined yourself with…’

‘With what?’ Elsie arched a brow, ‘How exactly am I ruined? Because I am a free spirit, because I prefer the sun to dreary candlelight? Plants and animals to sewing, and the reading of inoffensive novels and other suitably dull and feminine past times? Out here I feel connected to something, in there I might as well be an ornament, my true skills wasted. At least here I can be of use.’

Pence tried once more to glance behind her to see exactly what she was doing that was so important. ‘You know,’ the Housekeeper said darkly. ‘People do talk. Twenty-six, they say. Twenty-six and spending her time in the fields with the beasts, picking poppies and mushrooms and mixing up nasty potions. A hundred years ago you would burn for what you do! Burn as a heretic. It is about time your father took the matter in hand and towed you into line at last. Don’t you roll your eyes at me! Now stop dithering and come inside…’

Elsie stepped off the shallow step to the outhouse and pulled the door to behind her. The poultice she had been working on for her best mare’s injured foal would have to wait. She smiled pleasantly at Pence as she locked up and pocketed the key in her skirts. With the shutters closed the old woman would have to break in should she want to know exactly what Elsie was doing in there, and the way it frustrated the Housekeeper was a source of secret delight. Less delightful was the chivvying Elsie was receiving now, along the path to the back of the house and on into the kitchen. It had been the same since she had been a little girl and oh how long ago that had been now. She wanted to bat the meddling woman’s hands away from her person and storm from the courtyard. To where, she had no idea, but anywhere more interesting than dinner with her father, an unknown and probably dreary guest, and a love letter from a creepy old man.

‘Your hands are filthy,’ Pence was saying, marching her through the servants’ corridors and out into the hall, ‘Covered in muck. If our gentleman caller should see he would not think you a lady at all…’

‘Why should I care what he thinks?’ Elsie said tiredly, noting a single canvas bag abandoned by the passage to the butler’s pantry. Clearly not his Lordship then, the old rogue travelled with a year’s worth of provisions for his ample stature.

‘Your father will expect you to entertain on the piano, and what if our guest was to offer to turn the page? He would spy those grass stains in an instant and your _nails,_ quite horrifying. I will bring you bicarbonate and you will soak them straight away.’ Pence urged her past the high doors to the reception rooms and towards the bottom stair leading to her chambers. ‘Hurry now, up you go! I’ve laid out the burgundy and I’ve had Philips and the girls heating water for a bath. We won’t have time to sort your hair properly but…’

An explosion of male laughter erupted from the drawing room and the doors swung open. Elsie’s father, the Rt Hon Rupert Fitzjames emerged with a gentleman of around forty in well-shaped grey frock coat and highly polished boots. Elsie did not recognise him, but within the room, standing by the fire she spotted her mother, waiting patiently in her allotted place like a doll.

‘Ah, Eleanor!’ her father said proudly. Pence nudged her elbow, mouthed ‘hands.’ For the sake of avoiding further argument before a total stranger Elsie tucked them behind her but made sure to do so with a level of bad grace. ‘My daughter,’ Fitzjames explained, ‘Eleanor, this is Captain William Charity, he will be our guest for a night,’ his face twitched slightly, ‘At the behest of your mama.’

The man turned to her and smiled, a sight so dazzling it seemed quite out of place in the dim old hallway. The light from the stained glass on the landing caught his eyes and sparkled. Elsie felt something in her chest lurch.

‘Just passing through, I’m an old friend of your mother’s,’ Charity said confidentially with a little wink. ‘And one who is most grateful to the lady of the house for the favour after all these years,’ he called back into the room with a bow, ‘Why I was just a boy the last time she took me in. And you! ‘ he beamed, ‘You are of course, _Elsie,_ ’ he added meaningfully, ‘The _other_ lady of the house and just as beautiful if I may add. Splendid to meet you.’

He waited, fingers outstretched to take hers, all amiable charm and slightly disarming confidence. Pence glared at her in warning, then her father did too. Elsie watched Charity catch the looks with a curious purse of his mouth. Oh, for heaven’s sake, he would think them all mad if she merely stood there gawping.

‘A pleasure, Captain,’ Elsie said and gave him her hand. Charity stooped and kissed her knuckles, his large hazel eyes flicking up to meet hers as his touch left her skin. His tongue flicked quickly over his lower lip, which he drew through his teeth slightly to savour.

‘Picking flowers?’ he asked with a knowing look.

‘Yes, there is a garden, mainly herbs, but some flowers…’ but his attention had wandered. She felt his curious gaze in her hair.

‘I think one has strayed,’ he suggested quietly, ‘May I?’ He pulled her to him gently and let his eyes roam through her soft blonde hair, his hand suspended over the top of her head for a moment before he carefully extracted a small tangle of curly moss from one lock. Charity held it between thumb and forefinger and raised an elegant eyebrow mischievously.

‘Don’t young ladies usually prefer daisies?’ he asked in hushed tones.

‘Actually I…’

‘Come away, Eleanor, the gentlemen will have things to attend to, they don’t want to hear about your roses and lilies,’ Pence said.

‘Smelt like lavender to me,’ Charity argued, bending to her hands again, ‘And,’ he inhaled the scent again slowly, his dark lashes lingering closed as he tried to place it, ‘echinacea I believe?’

‘Why yes!’ Elsie said with a laugh. ‘How on earth do you know that?’

‘A potent combination with that moss I should think! Are you treating a wound?’ he asked straightening up and smiling, the whites of his teeth partially hidden by his lower lip and his eyes creasing prettily.

‘As a matter of fact, I am, it’s a poultice.’

‘Oh… well you must tell me more that could be terribly useful…’ he started, his gaze positively twinkling.

‘Eleanor!’ Pence cut in.

Charity looked between them. ‘Ah… But I can see you are needed elsewhere,’ he conceded politely. Perhaps we can continue this conversation later, over dinner?’

‘That would be…’

‘There are far more important things to be discussed, Captain!’ Elsie’s father interjected, ‘An announcement to be made no less. Oh _yes_! Eleanor run along and ready yourself, there is much to talk about and…’ his reddened face failed in its attempt to portray reassurance and ended in a spasm, ‘to _celebrate_.’

He pulled a folded missive from his jacket pocket, the broken red seal of his Lordship plainly visible on the back. He tapped his nose with the edge of the paper. God, it was true then. The ghastly man had asked permission for marriage. Elsie stood mutely for a moment, her mouth open and the weight of the knowledge hitting her stomach like lead. Her gawkish shock clear on her face, she noticed Captain Charity looking graciously at the floor to spare her blushes, his arms folded behind his back.

Pence tugged at her sleeve. ‘ _Come._ ’

‘Of course,’ Elsie said flatly, ‘Excuse me gentlemen.’

Charity inclined his head and as she retreated up the stairs Elsie could hear her father below bawling for the under butler currently occupied with pouring her bath.

‘Philips! Philips, come and assist this gentleman with his bags… is this all you have man? Good Lord, did you arrive here on foot? No carriage?’

‘Horseback…. But please, allow me, don’t bother your man,’ the Captain said, ‘I tend to travel light and it is just for the night.’

‘Nonsense, I won’t have any guest of ours hauling their own luggage, _Philips_!’

How very different from his Lordship’s demanding entourage. Elsie supposed she should be grateful he had not turned up out of the blue to offer his hand himself. Charity seemed pleasant enough and much more interesting than she had expected but now the rare gift of entertaining company at the estate was thoroughly marred by the damn letter her father kept waving about.

She kept climbing and the voices faded to be replaced with Pence issuing instructions to the maids gathered in Elsie’s room. On the bed the burgundy dress the Housekeeper had selected for her earlier, the heavy bustle and severe corset the woman favoured, the lady’s maid Polly lacing it nimbly so that it would all but crush her mistress and prevent any pleasure in dinner at all. This was not how Elsie had intended to spend her evening. The door shut behind her and the room was a flurry of irritating activity and instruction.

Elsie approached the dressing table, her fingers touching the diamonds laid out on velvet to accessorise her dress. Father truly was trying to impress the import of the moment upon her. His Lordship was not even in the building, too ancient and gammy to make the journey no doubt, but his proposal must be discussed by the family in all their finery, no doubt in part to show off their connection to their unexpected guest.

Poor man, what torture it would be for a worldly chap like Charity to watch her father pontificate on society at large. Elsie wondered why the Captain had chosen now to stay under their roof for but one night. The estate was rather out of the way for such a brief jaunt and he had made no mention of his intentions as most guests did. She would have liked to ask but she was certain the topics for discussion would not include Charity’s movements.

That was however the least of her concerns. Lord she was not even sure she could pretend to be polite about the whole marriage business all the way through dinner and beyond, when every fibre of her being told her run away, right _now_. Feeling nauseated she held the glittering stones briefly to her throat, cold weight against her skin, before balling them in her hand and flicking open her jewellery box. No, she would not wear them!

‘Eleanor! Put those back immediately, they were your grandmother’s and your father wishes you to show them this evening.’

‘My father wishes rather a lot for one evening, Pence, he has already decided my future, must he decide what I wear to receive the news of it too?’ Elsie dropped the jewels in the box and pulled out a silver chain, on which an old amulet was suspended, ringed with carved flame, a round scarlet crystal at its centre.

Pence froze, eyes wide. ‘Oh no, now you know he will not want to see that Heathen artefact!’

‘It is an heirloom. _Also_ my grandmother’s, and her grandmother’s before her…’

‘On _her_ side!’ Elsie dodged the woman’s thick hands as she tried to grab it away.

‘It’s perfect, when you think of it, what it symbolises…’

‘ _Eleanor_! Don’t let me hear you speak such nonsense! Put that down!’

Elsie snapped the chain into place around her neck and its crystal winked like a demon’s eye in the candlelight.

‘I’m wearing the Red Sun,’ she said. ‘You would have me thrown to the wolves, Pence, to the mercy of men who proffer me like property, who trade and bargain with my life, perhaps this will offer some protection. Perhaps my ancestors will take umbrage.’

‘Cursed girl!’ Pence exclaimed, the tell-tale wetness of superstitious fear in her eyes.

‘I thought you didn’t believe in curses,’ Elsie said, eying her through the looking glass.


	2. Chapter 2

It was seldom that Elsie found the opportunity to stray so far from the walled boundaries of her father’s estate, and almost never without company of some sort, but that morning she simply had to leave its confines and think, so shortly after breakfast, with Rupert Fitzjames occupied in his study and her distracted mother only too willing to give her unspoken permission, Elsie saddled up her grey mare and headed for the woods intending to make for the moorlands beyond and gather heather. After a ladylike canter across the meadow, she switched out of side saddle once hidden in the tree line and dropped the reins, letting Melody find her own direction through the remnants of last years fallen leaves. It was almost autumn, and the first sign of the change was in the canopies above, greens fading to orange and yellow at the edges. She would not, however, see those leaves fall again this year, thanks to his Lordship’s missive. And that was not the only thing unsettling her that day.

Dinner had been an excruciating trial brightened only by the occasional flash of Charity’s beguiling wit in subtly facetious response to her father’s preaching. Lord Montby’s proposal to him regarding his eligible daughter was read out, then read again and toasted, but very quickly Fitzjames turned attentions from Elsie’s upcoming marriage to his own political aspirations. A traditional conservative he had been delighted by Salisbury’s interruption of the Gladstonian reign that year and heralded it as a new age, and about time too, there had been far too much left-wing reform of late. Fancying himself foreign secretary in the hope of ascending to his own Prime Ministerial heights he held forth on the policies he would enact while Elsie fretted about her future and Captain Charity twisted the stem of his wineglass with a far away look in his eyes, sparing but the occasional glance at Elsie’s mother.

Alma Fitzjames was equally uncomfortable, the stony calm of her usually unreadable face afflicted with the tell tale worry lines about her mouth, though she humoured her husband and played the perfect hostess. Elsie’s father, absorbed in the sound of his own voice, failed to note or comment on the silent exchanges between his wife and their guest, but Elsie saw it all, not least the steadying hand Charity placed briefly on her wrist at one point after dessert. Shortly afterwards her mother suggested the ladies withdraw and the men headed to the smoking room, Charity’s face a mask of strained pleasantry as he followed in the wake of Fitzjames.

Elsie had not expected to see him again, knowing he was set to leave the house at dawn and continue on his journey, so it was with both surprise and later abject betrayal, that she encountered him later that night. Her mother had retired at ten thirty complaining of a headache and leaving Elsie to her novel by the fire, but on retiring herself closer to midnight her daughter ran straight into the erstwhile Captain quitting her mother’s private sitting room, burgundy cravat askew and collar undone. He had his coat slung over his arm, the puff of his shirt’s full white sleeves only drawing more attention to his bare throat and as he stepped backward out into the hall she caught a glimpse of her mother’s gown in the low lit room behind him, one pale hand extended to press his elbow affectionately as he took his leave. She had ducked into a darkened doorway nearby and watched as he had sailed past, his stride just as confident as before, quite unfazed by any concerns he might be caught. The door of the sitting room took a minute to click shut, as though Alma Fitzjames watched him too.

Awful. The whole thing had been awful. Elsie had barely slept a wink, her headful of wild imagines of a ghastly wedding gown and ghastlier groom, mixed with unsavoury speculation over Charity’s evening liaison with her usually quiet, shy and retiring mother. She could not remember him ever visiting before, but apparently the two were close, close enough to warrant a private audience and the spinning of outright lies to her father and herself.

Elsie felt wildly out of control to witness such a meeting, her mother had never keep a thing from her she was sure, the two so close in age they might be sisters. She had most certainly felt them to be friends and female confidantes, but the thought of her mother’s tendency towards youth merely made her wonder all the more. Was not her father a good deal older than mama? Did Charity represent a lover past or present much closer to her own age? What was it he had said, about being asked to stay when he was a boy? Her mother had married at eighteen, had she so quickly grown tired of her father and invited entertainment from a lad like William Charity?

Alone in her own room Elsie had let her imagination churn, elaborating facts into scenarios, leaping from her mother’s possible infidelity to the prospect of spending remainder of her own life within the prison of the Montby mansion or worse within their impressive townhouse in London. She hated the city, she hated his Lordship, and she hated being told what to do, but she simply could not see a way out of the situation much short of faking her own death. Keen to consolidate his advantage as soon as humanly possibly Fitzjames had already written to inform his Lordship that he would send Elsie forthwith, with a suitable chaperone, to visit his great house and plan a glorious and highly public wedding. The clock was ticking and Elsie would leave the estate within a week.

Not before a number of tiresome fittings for travelling clothes and dresses in the village. And not before she had questioned mama. On her ride she had thought it through and vowed to confront her with what she had witnessed but first she had to calm her nerves and tendency towards impetuous anger or her mother would simply answer her with silence. Her horse coming to a halt to nibble on some bluebells Elsie sighed and hopped down, unfastening the bag for herbs and flowers she had tied to the saddle. There was lichen on these trees she could collect for her supplies, a habit she absolutely refused to give up on despite knowing that continuing her studies in such matters would be well nigh impossible as a married Lady with a household to oversee. She approached the nearest likely looking tree and took out a little knife to scrape the bark.

‘Nasty looking thing that,’ a voice said from behind her.

Elsie spun, and was greeted by the sight of William Charity leaning against an oak, his right hand resting lightly on a cane and beyond him nibbling bluebells with Melody a hulking chestnut beast of at least seventeen hands. She felt herself flush red with irritation.

‘How did you!? I didn’t hear,’ Elsie snapped.

Charity looked over his shoulder, ‘Oh Aro? He can be silent as a mouse that one, very light on his feet,’ he smiled, ‘Didn’t mean to frighten you, my dear.’

‘I wasn’t frightened,’ she said curtly, heart hammering, ‘Just… surprised. Apparently you are full of surprises,’ she levelled at him.

‘Aren’t I just. Now, put the knife away, there’s a love,’ Charity said, and she realised she had been brandishing it towards him, ‘I don’t have much luck with those things.’

She considered keeping it to hand given the braggard’s actions last night but then reconsidered. She may get more information by playing innocent that irate. ‘I thought you had departed early?’ she asked politely, slipping the knife back into her bag.

‘Indeed, crack of dawn,’ he said looking past her and then around the woods. ‘Do you normally come out here alone, Elsie?’

‘Normally I am prevented,’ she said a little sourly, ‘But after last nights events I needed a little time to myself.’

‘Understandable,’ he said without rising to her tone, she watched him pull off his leather riding gloves, bunch them both in one fist. ‘But one must be careful, you’re quite some distance from the house, and hidden.’

‘I have lived here all my life, Captain, I can assure you I shan’t get lost.’

‘That isn’t my concern,’ he pushed off the tree and stepped towards her, ‘It is quite clear you know your way about, so does your mare, walked herself straight to this clearing without a finger on her reins.’

Elsie’s eyes widened. ‘Have you… have you been _following_ me?’ she accused. ‘How dare you!’

‘Nothing so sinister,’ he had reached her and looked down into her face beneath the brim of his hat, ‘But you might say our paths are somewhat…’ his sights dipped lower to her breast, caught on something.

‘Sir! Mind your gaze!’

‘…Aligned,’ he finished. She saw the tip of his tongue rest atop his lower lip briefly. ‘Interesting,’ he added distantly.

Elsie found her hand lifting protectively to her chest, but he swept it to one side with the silver cap of his cane.

‘That’s a fascinating amulet you have there,’ he said, ‘I saw you wearing it last night, such a brilliant shine. Ruby?’

‘Crystal,’

‘Celtic?’

‘Yes.’

‘Very old I should say.’

‘It has been in my family for generations. Captain Charity, I really must insist you..’

‘May I?’ he held his hand beneath her chin, his bare fingers inclined to the pendant and equally bare eyes fixed on hers at last. Elsie swallowed but nodded faint assent. Charity looped a finger around the chain and the sunlight caught the crystal brightly. She could not quite read the expression on his face, but she heard the parting hiss from his lips as he dropped the thing back against her skin. ‘You need to be careful with that,’ was all he said before stepping back and casting a look about the place again. ‘You should head home.’

‘I’m going to the moors.’ She felt dizzy and off balance, his form suddenly strangely absent from the space around her, his focus turning elsewhere.

‘Weather’s turning, wouldn’t want you to get soaked.’

‘The sky is quite clear, Captain Charity, you’ll forgive me if I don’t adhere to your instruction.’

‘Appearances can be deceiving.’

‘Apparently so,’ she said. ‘I shall be continuing on, thank you.’

‘I wouldn’t advise it,’ he frowned and turned to look past the horses, the cane clutched in his hand at chest level. ‘What I would advise is that you are a good girl, get back on your horse and make for the estate,’ he added in a slow quiet voice.

That did it. ‘Captain! I can assure you that I am nobody’s _girl_ …’

‘Shh,’ he held up his free hand to silence her and Elsie bristled. After a second he reached for her wrist and tugged, all but marching her towards Melody.

‘Captain Charity, unhand me this instant!’ but he tugged again then spun her to face him, her back against Melody’s broad side.

‘Get on the horse,’ he said in a low growl and then with a sarcastic smile added, ‘ _Please_.’

Elsie looked at him in confusion, the firm grip of his hand around her wrist, the press of his thigh against her skirts, the clarity of every detail of his face so close to hers. Behind his head the changing leaves of the season, the wink of the sun in a silver earring to his left. How dare he? Who was this man?

‘Don’t tell me what to do, you are not my father.’

‘No, indeed I am not, far from it,, but it is for that very reason that I may have a chance in getting you to _listen_. Now do stop being stubborn and...’

There was a crack of branches behind him and as he spun to trace the sound his coat opened with the motion to reveal a pistol strapped to his waist and a belt of other similar weapons at his hips. Excessive, even for an army man. What in God’s name was going on?

‘Who _are_ you?’ Elsie said wriggling under the pressure of his palm, now planted on her bodice pressing her back across the horse. Another crack from closer by and she squirmed to see past the breadth of his shoulders.

‘A friend…’

‘Of mama’s…

‘And of you, you have to trust me,’ there was a more frantic tone to his voice now, ‘Quickly now, get on the horse.’ He turned back as though to boost her into her saddle and Elsie cried out suddenly in fear. Four men emerged between the trees, their sights quite clearly fixed on her. Charity placed himself between her and their slowly advancing bodies, changed his stance and to improve his view, tipped his top hat back with a jaunty nudge of his cane.

‘Hello gentlemen! Lovely morning for it, isn’t it?’

‘For what?’ the creature to the left asked gruffly, ‘Little stroll in the woods?’

‘How about a picnic?’ one of his accomplices suggested. Charity’s head ticked between the four like a fox appraising prey.

‘Maybe do some hunting?’ the third man said.

‘Oh, I like that one,’ said the last, casually fetching his tobacco from his pocket. ‘What does the lady think, eh? That sound good to you? If we give you a head start?’

Laughter. Elsie looked desperately at Charity. ‘Get on the horse…’ he said quietly.

‘But…’

‘If it’s opinions you are collecting gents, then please have mine,’ he said suddenly, ‘You see my horse needs a bit of a rest and I forgot to bring the sandwiches, it’s the wrong season for pheasant, but I wouldn’t say no to a spot of old fashioned fisticuffs. How about it?’

It happened so fast that later Elsie could barely remember it. The four men descending on him with a din, the snap of Charity’s cane against their bodies as he spun between them, the first man stumbling to one side, and her horse startling as she swung herself to the saddle. Melody reared and kicked out, there was a shamble of limbs beneath her, the dove-wing flare of Charity’s grey coat tails as he moved, curses and expletives, threats of messy death and retribution, and then for a moment nothing, silence.

Captain William Charity, straightening from a blow in the centre of a circle of his enemies, blood trickling from his brow, and his body braced for their next assault. Above his head the first of the canopy’s leaves began to fall, golden yellow.

‘Ride!’ he shouted, ‘Go now!’ and Melody lurched forward to the sound of a pistol shot behind.


	3. Chapter 3

She should have taken the train. Elsie had argued in its favour and incredibly her father had agreed, viewing such transport as befitting of a young lady on her way to meet her fiancé. It was quicker and more dignified, the plush interior of the first-class carriage with its ornate lamps and fine dining being a mirror of their own home. However, her mother was having none of it, and Rupert Fitzjames in a fit of unusual indulgence had agreed to her request instead that a carriage be sent with one of their men at the reins. Pence eagerly volunteered to chaperone but again Alma stepped in and all but banned the woman from leaving the estate. She could not spare the staff, but she would pay a respectable widow from the a nearby village to accompany Elsie South, towards Lord Montby’s mansion. Elsie’s father had baulked at that and declared that if Mrs Fitzjames was willing to pay a stranger rather than send reliable old Pence she might as well go herself to give away her daughter, but Alma, usually the meekest of wives, refused again. The widow would be hired, and that was that.

Elsie scowled at the old woman opposite her unsure if she was even awake. She had not proved to be the most talkative of companions and did little to improve Elsie’s mood. From the off the chaperone had squeezed her stout figure into the opposite seat and withdrawn into sullen silence, her face obscured by her extravagant mourning veil and all else just as dark and sombre. She did not sew or knit, she did not read, she barely looked out the window at the passing autumn scenes. No topic seemed to perk her interest, no pleasantries were exchanged. She reeked of godliness and sobriety and extremes of respectable etiquette, three things Elsie could not stand, and she was all the company to be had on the three day journey. The thought of strained conversation over every upcoming meal in their temporary coach house lodgings made Elsie lose what little appetite remained, and that was very little indeed given her life was due to end the minute she arrived in Surrey for her wedding.

She shifted in her uncomfortable woollen travelling coat and directed her glower out of the window. The passing trees were more golden now that just a week ago and the air far more chill. Summer was fading and with it she suspected all her youth and happiness. Evening was drawing in already, the sun dipping redly on the horizon and lighting the inside of the carriage with crimson rays. Elsie touched her throat, where her amulet lay heavy on her skin beneath her high buttoned collar. Blasted thing’s catch had broken and she had been quite unable to remove it since the surreal events of the previous week. It was lucky she liked the design, and though it did not match many of her new clothes, it did not much seem to matter as her mother had chosen a host of dated fashion for her daughter, everything stiff and starched and dull and covered. The amulet would hardly see the light of day again. Neither, Elsie suspected, would she. Montby would probably lock her in the attic or chain her to the nursery.

The carriage trundled on, bumping over the rough road and jostling its hostages. Elsie closed her eyes against the lurching scenery and was immediately hit with the brilliance of memory, the vivid colours of the woodlands and of blood. The boom of a pistol. She started upright suddenly, the picture refusing to fade and a knot of terror beneath her bodice. Captain Charity had simply vanished. After a week of nightmares, the idea unsettled her enough that she seemed to think of it at every opportunity, seeking answers from her scant recollections. Despite her resolve to dislike him for whatever relationship he had with her mama, she did not wish to hear of his body being found in a nearby stream or hidden in woodland. He had after all protected her.

She reasoned that she had done her best to help him in return and that whatever had transpired could not be her fault. After racing Melody back to the estate, she had careened into the courtyard breathless and undone to be greeted by the alarmed stable boys. Being good lads they set off straight away to the spot wherein she had left Charity and signs of combat and disruption were sighted; torn fabric, blood, the splintered bark of a tree, embedded shot, broken branches and scuffed tracks through the mud and fallen leaves. They searched about beyond the clearing, but the tracks of a horse other than her own petered out once in the meadow. How all five men could have vanished so quickly had completely baffled Elsie. The local authorities were alerted but no more had been discovered since. She had been the last to see the man alive, and that thought did not sit well on her conscience.

It was not the only thought that troubled her either. No-one was any wiser as to why she had been targeted, but her father immediately used it to his political advantage to advocate stricter law and punishment and spent a goodly amount of time over dinner than night holding forth once more on his favourite topic, the disintegrating nature of society and the gross mistake the last Reform Act had been in empowering lower class men who now felt entitled to take what would never rightfully be theirs. Feeling uncared for as a daughter, and valued only as an unwilling support for political argument, Elsie had let him blather on, but to her credit even Pence seemed concerned that she was intact after her fright and eased off on her nitpicking and nagging for a whole evening, a brief advantage soon forgotten in the flurry of activity that followed as trips were made to town and tailors visited and outrage had over travelling plans.

Everyone was talking of the wedding, and no-one of the missing William Charity. Even her usually sensitive mother failed to see anything shocking or significant about the whole debacle and told her to focus instead on finishing her wedding sampler to gift to Lord Montby’s niece. Her _mother_ who had professed Charity to be a friend but said no more about it when he vanished. Her mother who had spent an evening in his company without her father’s knowledge and now would not so much as mention his name. Guilt probably, Elsie reasoned, but she was left with a sense that Charity had flitted in and out of their home unwitnessed by any but herself and she might be going mad, imagining dashing Captains coming to her rescue in woods.

Not that he was dashing at all. Not in any way. Man was clearly disreputable. He had an earring for God’s sake.

On the horizon a smattering of houses blooming chimney smoke came into view against the rapidly dwindling sunset and Elsie realised there were perhaps just a mile or two out from the first village wherein they were due to stop. As the carriage negotiated the last of the sweeping road through the moors, she reluctantly turned her attention from a vivid memory of Charity’s (very irritating) smile, back to the dark shape across from her and cleared her throat.

‘Mrs Coulston,’ she said and waited as several yards of dry stone wall eased passed the window. ‘ _Mrs Coulston_.’

‘I heard you,’ the woman said roughly, the light catching her eyes behind the veil but offering nothing else of her face, ‘What?’

‘We are almost at Rosedale. We had best ready ourselves.’

‘Hmph.’ She shifted about in her seat and then stilled again, in exactly the same position as before, without attending to any of their things.

Elsie bit the inside of her lip. Not only was the woman sullen but now she demonstrated a tendency towards downright surliness. Some lady’s maid she was making. Fine, Elsie would pack up. Pray that on arrival they could take a meal at once and retire, for a whole evening of such grunts and dismissals and services unrendered would surely drive her mad. Would the old hag even unlace her corset or remain too inert to attend even to that? Elsie would have to set the tone or be left in dire circumstances.

‘Mrs Coulston, if you don’t mind, when we arrive I…’

There was a clatter of hooves, descending on them from behind the carriage and two dark shapes flashed past the window, briefly obscuring the last of the evening light. A gun shot and the carriage’s mares reared and whinnied, knocking the whole thing back with a lurch and a tip before its wheels crashed down again beneath them. Elsie found herself thrown forward, landing hard on her knees and palms before the opposite bench. There was a shout from outside and she heard their driver yell in fear. A flurry of dark taffeta beside her, Elsie held out her hand to keep Mrs Coulston in her place and another shot rang out, outside. Elsie screamed, a feeble reflex in the face of their assault and clutched the skirts beside her.

‘Get down! Get down Mrs Coulston!’

But the skirts just came away in a slithering pile of dark material. Elsie looked up, at the reddened sky beyond the window and the sharp and veil-less profile of a man. She knew that profile.

‘Charity?’

‘Afraid so! No, time to explain now,’ she saw one hand reach for his belt while the other dumped his costume behind him, the white of his shirt glowing like fire in the sunset, the shadows clutching at his skin, ‘Spot of bother to sort out, I’ll be right back.’

And the carriage door opened and he vanished.

‘Charity!’ she called after him, ‘Don’t you leave me in…’

Bang. She ducked fearfully at the sound of more pistol fire. It was not something she had imagined herself ever getting used to yet there it was, and furthermore the sounds of a fracas. Indiscriminate shouting, a good deal of vulgar name calling and a thudding against the front of the carriage. Bang. Another shot. She saw a figure streak black across the moor, the buttons of his livery catching the last of the light.

‘Damn it, Parker!’ she cursed at the receding shape of the driver. ‘You coward!’

Bang. Elsie hid under the window, her back half to the luxuriously padded door and heard someone grunt with effort. There was a scuffling sound on the gritty road, the horses high pitched and terrified and then as quickly as it started the evening grew still again but for the low moan of an injured man.

She peered over the edge of the window and saw nothing moving. ‘Charity!?’ she whispered urgently.

That moan again from somewhere close by.

Elsie scrabbled up and tugged at the door but if flew open before she could properly turn its handle. She half fell onto the Captain.

‘Steady on,’ he said, tucking his pistol back into its holster. He smiled, eyes catching the first of the starlight. She hated him.

‘What in hell is going on?’ Elsie spat.

‘Language, my dear,’ he said sweetly.

‘To hell with language. Am I to be interfered with wherever I go? Who are these men? Are they… oh! Unhand me! _Unhand_ me!’

'Now, now, you don't mean that,' he soothed. 'Trust me I would know if you did,' he added cryptically. Elsie found herself tight against him, the press of one thigh under her hips, his hand somewhere it ought not to be, and her arms automatically clutching at his neck. She spun through the air cursing him.

‘Put me down! Charity put me down this instant!’

Chuckling he continued to remove her from the carriage with one arm about her waist, swinging her clear of a body prostrate on the ground and depositing her on some nearby grass. Elsie shrieked and stepped back from the corpse.

‘One dead, one getting there,’ Charity said, unceremoniously stepping over the dead man’s head, or what was left of it. He prodded the second, more vocal body with the toe of his boot and pulled a bit of a face, his teeth very white in the twilight. Elsie swallowed and averted her gaze; glad it was getting so dark.

She watched as he rummaged in the luggage attached to the back of the carriage, swinging a hitherto hidden gentleman’s coat around his shoulders and retrieving a cravat from its pocket. He adjusted the mirror by the driver’s seat to reflect the last of the daylight and tied the thing neatly, wetted a finger and adjusted his eyebrows.

‘Are you quite done?’ Elsie said irritably. ‘Would you mind explaining what’s going on before I die of cold? Why do you keep… _appearing_?’

‘Did you like it, the disguise? One of my better ones, can hide all sorts in a bustle.’

He grinned.

Elsie glared at him and he had the decency to let his face fall a little.

‘Please accept my apologies for the cold, Elsie, I would have thought that monstrous coat was quite warm,’ he said, before reaching within the carriage for a knapsack Elsie had previously not detected/ ‘Bustles you see! Useful things. Well this one is… yours probably more of an inconvenience come to think of it,’ he mused.

‘How dare you!’

‘Well… it’s not really to your taste is it, old girl? The coat, the dress? All a bit prim.’

‘Shut up! My mother picked this!’

‘My point exactly, what girl of twenty-six wants to be dressed by her mama, even one as charming as yours.’

‘Don’t speak about my mother,’ Elsie growled, ‘Not unless you wish to explain what you were doing in her rooms!’ She folded her arms and stared at him.

‘Ah, that…’ Charity said.

‘Yes, _that_. I saw you! And she won’t even speak of you. I demand answers!’

‘All in good time,’ he assured pleasantly. He slung the knapsack over one shoulder, retrieved his top hat from goodness knew where and smiled his dazzling smile. ‘We should probably be moving,’ he nodded over the moor.

‘I will not be moving anywhere with you, Captain.’

‘That could be problematic.’

‘For you maybe.’

Charity glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the village.

‘Look I promise to regale you with all the necessary detail later, but for now, could we get going?’

Elsie stared at the moor.

‘Please?’ he tried. ‘The coat is very nice?’

‘What were you doing in her rooms?’

‘Nothing untoward I assure you,’ he looked back again. ‘I am a gentleman, if nothing else. Elsie?’

She considered him but before she could truly unpick her thoughts she heard the sound of distant shouting. Charity’s head ticked towards it anxiously as she followed his eyeline. ‘Who is that…?’ she squinted.

‘More trouble. I don’t wish to alarm you further, but we really should move on,’ Charity suggested.

‘Move on? _Where_? Why?’

‘Long story, come on, this way.’ And he strode off at right angles to the road and straight onto the moor. Elsie stood flabbergasted.

‘If you think I am clambering through boggy moorland…’

‘It’s only a couple of miles by the stars,’ he said, ‘Come along.’

‘Wait a moment, shouldn’t we head to Rosedale? Get some help? Those men just tried to kill us! We need the police! That could be them now, coming to our assistance!’

‘No… no that’s definitely not the police,’ he said tiredly, stopping with one booted foot on a hummock, ‘This isn’t the sort of thing the authorities have much leverage with I’m afraid. Bit out of their league.’

‘Being the victim of a pair of highwaymen would be precisely their _league_ , Captain Charity.’

‘Not your average highwaymen either, my dear,’ he said a tad impatiently, ‘I’ll explain….’

‘Well _do_.’

‘In a little while,’ he looked back down the road to the village. ‘You see those highwaymen have friends and the noise of our shots will have carried. We really need to go, Elsie, they don’t look very happy about it me killing their pals.…’

Elsie spun to look behind her, caught the sight of more horses and men, lanterns shining. They were a good distance yet but growing more distinct by the second and Charity was right. They did not look even faintly impressed.

‘Oh, good lord,’ she said, looking frantically between them and the Captain. ‘But, there’s just moorland, where can we go?’

‘Don’t you worry, I have it all under control.’ Charity took a pace forward and grabbed her hand, ‘With me,’ he commanded with a grin, ‘Hitch up those skirts, there’s a good girl. Now _run_!’


	4. Chapter 4

Charity’s destination turned out to be a simple two room cottage built of stone located in a dip upon the moor and rendered invisible by it state of disrepair. The tumble-down dry-stone walls about its perimeter were not much below those of the place itself in terms of height, and mix of ancient thatching and broken slates gave the roof the look of a badly fashioned wig. Elsie suspected it would look even worse in daylight, but for now as it was in the cool glow of moonlight and stars the building looked draughty and uninviting.

Still it had to be better than the growing wind outside which licked through her coat and tugged upon her skirts as she waited impatiently for the Captain to turn an iron key in the lock. He appeared to have a number of such keys in an oversized bunch which he fished from his frock coat and peered at one by one in the gloom.

‘We ought to have brought a lantern from the carriage,’ Elsie muttered.

‘Wonderful way of ensuring we would be followed,’ Charity countered, focusing on his task.

She declined to retort, aware that he was probably right, but inwardly seething that she had been forced to stumble across over a mile of tundra in the growing night while he dragged her forth and on more than one occasion, shoved her into a ditch or depression to lay low while the voices of the pursuing men floated over the horizon. On the second instance of three he had had the audacity to bodily pin her beneath him while he whipped what could only be described as a tattered blanket from his knapsack and covered them both under its stinking fibres. With one knee intruding between her legs and the breadth of his chest pressing into hers she could feel the heat of his trapped breath against her ear as he held her still, one finger pressed up at her lips to silence her as the men stomped past. Had she not been so frightened for her life she would have slapped him but instead lay quite frozen under the weight of his body until with a dramatic gesture he cast back the smelly blanket and grinned down at her.

‘Onwards!’ he had declared, scooting backwards and holding out a hand to help her up. Elsie had grudgingly taken it and been heaved to her feet, her coat sticky in places with goodness knew what and thoroughly damp in others.

At least after the third ditch dive he had finally stopped his encouraging and irritatingly upbeat banter after a no doubt embarrassing and undignified tumble taken whilst trying to clamber out of the latest hole. To her amazement after lifting her clear (with a rather offensive grunt implying she was nothing less than a hefty burden of a girl) he had lost his footing and tipped backwards, apparently winding himself although quite why a soldier was being so dramatic about landing in a bit of mud when he was forcing her to march through it in a skirt was beyond her. Elsie had not been sure if she should roll her eyes in despair or laugh at him, bent from the waist trying to recover his breath, but she was grateful at least that his chipper encouragement had dried up and they could proceed on in silence. Silence that was except for his occasional gasps of ragged breath. Old man was clearly not as fit as he made out.

Charity rattled another key in the dark lock of the almost hidden cottage door and Elsie sighed loudly.

‘Do stop scowling, there’s a love,’ he said.

‘I may, should you succeed in actually getting us inside.’

‘I am doing…’ clunk, ‘My best… Ah!’ The door juddered, its edges sticking. Charity put a shoulder to it and pushed. Nothing happened. She could hear him breathing hard as he tried again, one boot slipping in the mud beneath as he strained.

‘Oh, for heavens sake!’ Elsie complained. ‘It is only a door!’

‘You could help, you know,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Or at the very least… refrain.. from… carping… on.’

Elsie gawped at his rudeness. ‘It is bad enough that I am half drenched with mud, in the middle of a blasted heath on a freezing autumn night with a madman who until recently was dressed as an old woman, without being persued by rogues and frightened half to death and now you want me to participate in breaking entering and _physical pursuits_ unbecoming to a lady…’

‘Oh, never mind…,’ he grunted and banged up against the door again. It shook. He stepped back for a final shot, hesitating.

‘Get on with it! All of this is absolutely…’ Elsie started.

‘Ooph,’ the door flew open and Charity staggered after it into total darkness. She heard him make an unhappy sound from within, somewhere between a moan of pain and a sob. Elsie had just enough time for her compassion to kick in and her petulance to feel guilty.

‘Captain?’ she called in a half whisper.

‘Just a moment,’ his breathless voice came. There was a series of clattering sounds and then at last a sudden flare of light. He held a match to a lantern wick. ‘Well, come on, before someone sees,’ he waved and she stooped under the low lintel. Charity came behind her and still holding the lantern he had discovered, shoved the stubborn door back again in two runs. Again he made a miserable sound on impact and finally he rested his forehead against the thing and took a long steadying breath. Elsie took the opportunity to seize the lantern from his slack grip and look about the room.

The place was not as abandoned as it first looked. There was a good stack of firewood in one corner, and upon the table supplies of candles and lamp oil. A stool, an ancient looking armchair and a footrest. She held the light aloft and spied food wrapped in cloths and placed upon the larder shelf, and dried goods hanging from the rafters. Behind the fireplace which was set into the dividing wall she could just make out a bedroom, furnished basically, but not nearly as grimy and incomplete as she had expected.

‘I know it isn’t what you’re used to, but I tried to make it as comfortable as possible,’ Charity said having recovered himself and straightened up. He tossed his hat down on the table, tiredly.

‘You did this?’ she said.

‘I had a little lime on my hands between visiting your mother and collecting you.’

‘Collecting me?’

‘You didn’t want to marry that old fool did you?’ Charity slumped down into the armchair and flexed his back and hips awkwardly. Elsie watched him in consternation. Was she being kidnapped?

‘Just what is going on!?’ she asked.

Charity was poking about in the pockets of his coat. ‘Where are they… I had them just a moment ago…’ he said.

‘Captain Charity!’

‘Ah!’ he located his matches and struck one, threw it casually onto the fire he had apparently laid in preparation for their visit. The tinder took quickly. ‘Should warm up in a moment,’ he said, the light in the room growing slowly.

‘Captain Charity I insist that you elaborate,’ Elsie said standing before him and blocking his view of the fire while at the same time hoping she might dry out or warm up.

‘Ah, yes, of course. Well your mother got in touch a little while ago, told me about your father’s plans for you, the old and not terribly pleasant Lord Montby, advised me you might need a bit of rescuing , and as rescuing damsels is one of my most outstanding abilities, I was only too happy to help.’

Elsie blinked. ‘My mother asked you to…. I thought she wanted me to marry…’ A rush of relief went through her. Dear mama. She was on her side all along. Well why had she not just said that in the first place? ‘So all this is in aid of preventing my wedding? At mama’s behest?’

‘Not entirely…’ he said. ‘That is to say, that was our initial intention. I’d go with you in the carriage as ‘chaperone’ and then at an opportune moment I would reveal my identity, we’d fake your death and spirit you away to somewhere could you safely avoid the whole ghastly business. Your family have some lands to the north, on your mother’s side, I was to take you there…’

But Elsie had got stuck upon an earlier stage to the plan. ‘Fake my death?!Captain Charity, those men did not look for a moment like they were trying to fake anything. They had pistols. Pistols that they fired in my direction! And last week? Those men in the woods!’

‘Ah yes, well things appear to have… evolved since your mama’s first letter to me…’ Charity confessed. ‘Those men last week were rather out of the blue, I had hoped it was a one off, that I’d read the signs wrong, but we were supposed to get to Rosedale today in safety and here we are, as you say, in the middle of more impromptu gunfights. It seems events have rather overtaken us.’

‘So who are they?’

‘Who?’ he shifted in the armchair a little, slid one hand under his coat with a distracted grimace.

‘The men!’

‘I’m not sure,’ he said.

‘You’re not sure?’

‘No. But I know the type. Happens all the time at the Bureau. Always someone after these things, power hungry, sending hirlings to collect artifacts….’

Elsie’s mind raced on, barely listening. ‘Are they sent by my father? By his Lordship?’

‘What? Oh no, I doubt they would do that sort of thing,’ Charity paused, ‘Although you never know these days with mercenaries, plenty for hire and all that, but I don’t think it’s your father’s style. I don’t know about his Lordship, never met him, I suppose… but I do think this is quite a separate issue. I mean…not unexpected, I’ve been expecting it for twenty years or so, but I didn’t think it would happen quite so immediately…’ he drifted off, his tone rambling. Elsie wanted to shake him.

‘Captain what are you talking about? Expecting what? If it’s not my father or Montby, then who? Why would anyone come after me? I’ve been cooped up on the estate all my life I barely know anybody!’

Charity seemed to come too a little and glanced up at her. ‘Now you’re asking the right questions,’ he said and winced. Elsie frowned.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked, despite herself.

‘Quite all right thank you,’ he braced himself on one arm of the chair. ‘Look why don’t you fetch yourself something to eat, its been a long day. I um…’ he gestured towards the larder, ‘I stocked up for you, should find some wine in there too. Go ahead, help yourself…’ he squeezed his eyes shut and Elsie followed the odd line of his body as he hunched awkwardly to one side.

‘Captain Charity?’ she stepped forward. The light from the fire fell across him catching a gleam of sweat on his upper lip and forehead. He blinked hard as though trying to clear his focus then shut his eyes again.

‘I’ll just be a moment, and I’ll… um… join you,’ he said with a tense smile and his right hand hidden under his coat, pressed tight to his left side.

‘What’s wrong?’ Elsie said, the worry making her voice quiver.

‘Nothing, just a…’ he made a negating gesture, his lips tight and his nose twitching once, ‘Just a scratch… old… um…’ his breath shuddered out of him suddenly, ‘ _Oh_.’

Elsie dropped to her knees by the chair, her hands quickly on his wrist and coat, pulling his fingers away from the growing stain she could now see leeching through the fabric. In the glow of the fire she looked down at her own coat and caught the same blood stains on her opposite side, remembered the press of him against her body as they hid in the ditches outside. How long ahd he been bleeding and how much? Her palm came away from him crimson.

‘Oh my lord!’ she exclaimed and with efficiency unbuttoned his waistcoat, revealing the white shirt beneath, soaked and stained red. ‘Are you shot?!’

‘No… no,’ he panted, ‘Nothing like that, an old wound… having a spot of trouble getting it to close…’ Elsie’s fingers worked as he explained, tugging the shirt hem from his trousers and lifting.

Her eyes fell on the soaked dressing, the distinctive pattern on the muslin and the scent of herbs. She fixed his look with her own. ‘This is one of my mother’s poultices,’ she said levelly.

‘Yes,’ he said, nodding at his knapsack, ‘I have two more in that bag, she was kind enough to make them for me when I visited. I believe you saw me leave her, without my coat?’ His glance flicked down to the poultice as if explaining what she had witnessed.

Elsie eyed him. ‘When you were in her rooms? This? This is what she was doing? Mending you?’

Charity looked at her kindly. ‘Indeed. And not for the first time. My girl, your concern for your mother is admirable and I can quite understand your reservations about me, but I assure you, there is nothing salacious between she and I. She is a very old friend and very dear for reasons you could not imagine….’

‘I would have you tell me!’

Charity nodded in defeat, his face suddenly very pale in the firelight. ‘Of course, but… could I first possibly…’ and he nodded to the wound under her fingertips, the iron scent of blood and medicinal herbs rising from the poultice. ‘I understand from Alma you’re quite good at this sort of thing,’ he said a little sheepishly, ‘Might I ask for your assistance?’

Elsie considered briefly. The damned man. How in God’s name was she caught up in this madness? And then she caught sight of the shadows beneath his unfocused eyes and helped him shrug out of his things. She pulled the shirt up further, baring his soft belly and furred chest and let him fall back against the chair as she tugged it over his head. Bunching it in her hand she moved to quickly wiped the sweat from his brow and cheeks, pressed it to his neck and the hollow of his throat while he fumbled slowly with the ties of the dressing below, wound about his waist and diagonally across one shoulder. He pulled weakly at the knots.

‘Let me,’ she said sharply and tossed aside the shirt, went to untie the bandage he struggled with.

Then she stopped. He looked up at her and tracked her gaze to his sternum.

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘You’ve noticed it. I was going to explain all that too but I am suddenly rather tired…’

‘Where did you get it?’ she asked and perched upon the arm of the chair, her eyes locked upon the thing around his neck.

‘I inherited it,’ Charity said, ‘Just as you did, grandmother to granddaughter, grandfather to grandson. They are passed down through the alternate generations in both of our families.’

Elsie reached out and touched the familiar silver amulet, ran the pad of her thumb over the red crystal at its centre. With her other hand she held her own pendant and compared it to Charity’s. His had no flames around its body, just a smooth silver circle carved in a recognizable style.

‘It’s different,’ she said. ‘From mine, I mean, different but the same.’

‘Yours is the Red Sun,’ Charity said quietly, ‘Mine is the Moon.’

‘But that doesn’t make sense. The Sun is traditionally masculine, the Moon feminine, it should be the other way around? Why would I wear the Sun if there is a Moon?’

He smiled. ‘Think about it,’ he said, ‘There are only two of these amulets, equal and opposite and as such they are bound together. I wear the Moon to symbolise my bond to you, to represent your importance to me as part of my Destiny. It’s a reminder, if you like, of the duties the men in my family must perform for the women of yours.’

He coughed and winced again, and Elsie felt the heat of fever on the bare skin of his chest. The sweat now soaked his hair and curled it tightly at his forehead in wayward ringlets. He swept them back, restlessly. ‘Forgive me,’ he went on, swallowing hard, lips dry, ‘I digress, you wanted to know why you wear the Sun… well in very much the same way, it is to remind you of the bond between us. The duties you are owed. The duties I must perform at all costs.’

‘I don’t follow,’ Elsie said. ‘I don’t even know you, how can there be a bond?’

‘The Red Sun,’ Charity explained, even as his eyes fought to stay open. ‘You know you wear it as a symbol of protection, yes?’

‘Yes. I have been told that much.’

‘That is what it signifies; your Protection in this world. That is our bond.’ He exhaled slowly, a wave of pain crossing his face before the lines seeped from his skin. He was falling into unconsciousness, his last words leaving him in a sigh. ‘I am your Protector,’ he said. ‘Until my dying breath.’


	5. Chapter 5

Morning crept up on Elsie with a slow rising amber sun and snort. She started from her perch on the footstool, propped against Charity’s chair, with a shriek, and found herself staring into two large warm brown eyes with elegant lashes. Another snort and the visitor dipped its head right through the shutters it had barged open and onto the table where the remains of Elsie’s supper were spread.

‘Dear God! Get off that you brute,’ she scrabbled up, stiff and sore, and waved her hands under the horse’s nose to defend the bread. ‘Shoo, shoo!’

‘Poor thing’s hungry, let him have the crusts. I forgot to tend to him what with all the bleeding and pain and so on.’ Elsie turned at the sound of his voice.

‘Hello,’ Charity smiled weakly. ‘Terribly sorry about last night, I seem to have passed out.’

He glanced down at his belly, lifted the blanket she had placed over him and tentatively patted the dressing she had affixed, the bleeding stopped for the moment with a mixture of linen and mosses and a good deal of pressure exerted the previous evening. The knapsack of medicinal supplies her mother had packed him had come in more useful than Elsie expected.

‘Oh, thank you,’ Charity said, ‘That’s much better.’ His pale skin belied him. ‘I should probably,’ he made to lever himself up but slumped back against the chair after a moment with a soft ‘Ooph.’

‘Stay put, for goodness sake! I thought you were going to die!’ Elsie chastised. ‘It took an age to stop and the wound is poisoned. Just what did that? How long have you been carrying it?’

‘Three sided blade,’ Charity said, replacing the blanket reluctantly. ‘In Egypt a few months back. Should have healed by now,’ he frowned, ‘But with one thing or another it just keeps… popping open?’ he made a helpless gesture.

‘Captain Charity that is a serious wound, and with your antics of late it could have killed you, you should be resting not… not rescuing damsels from unwanted marriages and falling into ditches!’

He smirked.

‘It isn’t funny!’

He chortled, one hand planted on the dressing and his eyes creasing prettily. Despite her exasperation Elsie felt her lips twitch. Stupid man.

‘I didn’t ask to be rescued, you know,’ she protested a little saucily. ‘I’m sure I could have dealt with Montby somehow… there is more to me than meets the eye according to my mother.’

‘I do apologise, you are quite right,’ Charity said, ‘You are a very capable lady, as evidenced by my survival. I really am most grateful.’ She heard his stomach rumble. ‘I say you wouldn’t mind passing me some of that bread before Aro scoffs it all, would you?’ he asked sweetly.

Elsie grabbed the remains of the loaf from under his horse’s curious tongue and smacked it down onto a wooden plate with a chunk of butter. ‘Here,’ she said pushing it at him, ‘I’ll get you some water.’

‘Thank you,’ he said with just the glimmer of a twinkle in his eye, ‘I’ll be right as rain in no time and then we can get going.’

‘We?’

‘Well I can’t very well leave the damsel behind,’ he said.

She stopped by his chair and put a hand on his forehead, and he raised his brows at the intimate gesture.

‘You are still feverish,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘You ought not to travel anywhere.’

‘Just a touch, but I shouldn’t worry, I tend to run a little hot,’ he winked at her and tore off a chunk of bread with his impossibly pearly teeth. Elsie rolled her eyes and grabbed the jug from the table, then thought better of it and watered down some wine for him instead. He was as white as death, she should at least try to build him up a little before he tried to dash off anywhere, and besides she still had little clue as to what was actually going on. If she could keep him in one place she might gleam the whole picture and work out what she should do.

‘You were telling me about the amulets,’ Elsie said, ‘When you were taken ill?’

‘Ah! Yes. How rude of me. Now where did we get to?’ Charity said chewing thoughtfully as Elsie sat back down on the footstool, her skirts spilling across the hearth. ‘I promised to fill you in on a few things and then everything got a bit… woozy.’

‘Protector,’ Elsie said, filling the kettle from the jug, ‘You said you were my Protector, but that doesn’t make any sense. I’ve had this amulet forever, it’s a family heirloom true, but everything else you describe, the Sun the Moon, our ‘bond’ I… I’ve never heard the like of it before now.’

‘Your mother wanted nothing more than to protect you herself,’ he remarked, spreading butter, ‘To keep you away from a world of Curses and Legends, hide you in that estate where nothing would touch you like a fairy tale princess. And I must admit, that was what I wanted too. My Fate is inexorably tied to yours, and Protectors don’t exactly live long and happy lives. I never even knew my grandfather.’

‘He died young?’

‘In his twenties, protecting your grandmother from an assailant. My father was just a little boy. His was the generation that skipped, much like your mother, but we underestimate the effect that has on them. They lose their parents, then very often they lose their children too. The Curse of the Red Sun runs like blood through my family, and I grew up waiting for my turn. You might say it made me a little reckless… I had nothing left to lose.’

Charity put down his knife and for a moment his eyes glazed, his gaze on the bread in his hand. ‘My father couldn’t face it, in the end,’ he said eventually ‘After my mother died, he cast me out. Couldn’t bear any more grief I expect. Cut me off before it could happen.’

‘Before what could happen exactly?’

‘The inevitable,’ Charity said. ‘News was your mother had recently married and was expecting a child…. You of course. Once you came into the world, I was duty bound to put your life before my own, protect you with all my strength. My father knew it was coming, that I would take up my duties, just as his father had for your grandmother. He knew it would take me far away, from him, from my sisters, and that perhaps I would never come back. He was already grief stricken after losing his wife. He cut me off before he could lose me too.’

‘He threw you out? Rather than try and keep you safe?’ Elsie said, horrified.

‘One can’t protect the Protector,’ Charity smiled sadly, ‘That’s not how the Legend works.’

‘He could have tried! If you meant that much to him, if he was afraid. Legends are just stories, Captain, we make our own destiny.’

Charity set aside his plate slowly, tension in his face. ‘Generations of men have tried to save their sons from the Curse, Elsie, if there was a way, it would be found by now. No. He was a broken man. He had my sisters to think of and I had my Calling. I didn’t want to, but I left home that winter and made my way to your estate. It was my Duty. I had to accept it.’

‘I disagree. You owed nothing to me. You were just a boy.’

Charity said nothing.

‘So you turned to my mother? When your father threw you out?’ Elsie coaxed.

‘We were never supposed to meet,’ Charity explained. ‘Protectors are always present but never seen by the Protected or their families. Stops them getting too attached, I suppose, it must be fairly harrowing to watch someone die for you. No, our duty is to keep them safe, stop harm from finding them, and die unnoticed.’

Elsie felt a chill run through her. ‘I’m not sure I approve of the role my family play here, making use of yours to keep us safe.’

‘No more your fault than it is mine,’ Charity said sadly, ‘Just the roles we were assigned…. A long time ago.’

‘Roles can alter, we ought to be able to think for ourselves,’ Elsie said and watched his jaw twitch. After a moment she asked, ‘So how did you meet my mother? If you weren’t supposed to?’

Charity smiled softly, his expression relaxing a little. ‘She broke the rules. It was January, I’d walked over a week to get to the estate with only the clothes upon my back and I… I was a child. I was exhausted. I took refuge in her outhouse on my arrival, intending to wake before dawn and go on to the village, find myself a job, camp out and serve my destiny from a discreet distance but I had nothing else left. It was late, and it was dark, and it was snowing, and I slept deeper than I expected. She found me the next morning, she’d gone to work on her tonics and cure-alls, and she found me.’

Elsie saw the scene, the young woman in pale dawn light, stumbling across the frozen boy behind the counter on which she prepared her herbs. A mess of curly hair and two dirty hands peering over the edge fearfully. The glimmer of the Red Moon around his neck. The image came to her almost too easily, as though she had watched it from the window of the outhouse, but that was silly, she had not even been born.

‘Your mother is a remarkable woman,’ Charity continued. ‘She ought to have been terrified, though I expect the emaciated scrap of a boy that I was gave her little to fear, but at the very least she ought to have called the authorities and had me arrested for trespassing.’

‘What did she do instead?’

‘She took me in,’ he said. ‘And she fed me. Found me clean dry clothes. Gave me work. She knew who I was of course, she saw the amulet, worked it out, knew the legend from her mother. My arrival told her that you would be a daughter, that you would inherit the Red Sun and I would be Protector, and that in all probability I would not see thirty,’ he added dully.

‘Why have I only recently met you?’ Elsie asked curiously. ‘If you were there from the start? Did she send you away again?’

‘I stayed until I was old enough to join the army, you were just a toddler then, a vulnerable child, but she made a decision to keep you well hidden and sent me forth. She insisted, despite my protests. I had…’ he laughed drily, his usually fluid smile struggling to form on his lips, ‘I had fallen in love and she very much wanted me to have a future with the lady in question, friends of my own, children and so on. It wasn’t your mother’s fault… what happened in the end. The war dragged on and I was captured. By the time I got back Catherine had presumed me dead. Married a friend of mine in my absence. Had a son.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Better for her in the end,’ he said automatically, ‘Stable home, children, respectable husband. Mine is not an existence that lends itself to domestic bliss. I run from mission to mission, disguised, using different aliases. Nobody remembers me. I never put down roots.’

‘Even so Captain, to lose someone you loved, the hope you had been given…’ she trailed off, aware of the set of his jaw, the determination with which he held back his emotion. He sniffed, rubbed the palms of his hands down both thighs in a strengthening gesture.

‘The point I’m making is that your mother only wanted the best for me, saw me as a person not a symbolic defender,’ he said, rousing himself from wherever his thoughts had wandered, ‘She felt for me I think, I hadn’t chosen to be Protector and because of it I had lost my family and everything I knew. She wanted to give me a chance to have a life outside my duties, to choose my own route, and she tried, but Destiny does not work that way however much we may want it. It will always draw us back to our path. As it is doing to us now.’

‘I still need to be convinced of that, Captain,’ Elsie said replacing the poker. ‘But I am beginning to understand your loyalty to my mother.’ And that of her mother to him, it was hard not to like him when he spoke so frankly. It complicated things. He was no longer just a stranger popping up out of nowhere to save her, he was a very real part of her life.

‘I owe her a great deal,’ Charity was saying, ‘She even gave me my name…’

‘What?’ Elsie said.

He swiped at his brow with his shirt sleeve and it came away damp. She watched a bead of sweat trickle down his throat, catching in the dark stubble shading his skin. Somewhere inside him the poison still raged, seeping from the depths of his old wound despite her best work with her herbs.

‘It’s true. When my father cast me out, he stripped me of the family name. I think perhaps he didn’t wish to hear of my death or have any association in the future. When I arrived at your mother’s I was just ‘Will.’ She gave me ‘Charity,’ both as a name and by lending me her kindness. I had nothing and she gave me a chance at a future of my own making however brief it might be, however lonely and for a while I made something of that. Though I lost Catherine to Mundi, I went on to join the Bureau of Antiquity, I got to live a little before….’ He smiled painfully, his eyes wet and quickly looked into the fire.

Elsie’s throat tightened at the image of the abandoned boy her mother had saved that winter; at the man who knew his days might well be numbered, living as well and as bravely as he could while he was able to, albeit always alone. Lay aside his cocky grin and Charity’s face revealed a map of his experience, and not all of it kind to him, but his own kindness was clear in the lines about his eyes, despite all they had seen and the tears they had undoubtedly shed. He was a good man, she could not question it when he had bared his soul before her, and like her mother before her, all at once she made a decision.

Charity was still looking at the flames, his thoughts wending along unseen paths from his past.

‘No, Catherine made the right decision,’ he said more to himself than to Elsie, ‘perhaps it was Fate’s intervention that I was captured and prevented from marriage, and I … I tried to move on. I accepted her loss and my rather unusual lifestyle long ago.’

He looked back at her with a tremulous smile. ‘It’s not like it doesn’t have its advantages I suppose,’ he said.

‘Oh?’

‘Well, if I don’t make connections, nobody gets hurt.’

‘You do,’ she commented.

Charity laughed softly, briefly, an empty sound and turned his face away.


	6. Chapter 6

Elsie was mixing herbs in with the tea at the table which Aro had swept clean earlier that morning. Behind her Charity, the shadows under his eyes deepening with the effort of staying awake and the resurgence of his pain, was watching her intently, no doubt attempting to keep his focus on something other than his wound and burning temperature. He was restless to get moving, and so far she had delayed him with relative ease, but she knew she could only do that for so long.

‘You’re very alike, you and your mother,’ he said as she worked. ‘You are quite different in temperament in some ways but in others…’

‘We share a certain steeliness I think, even if she is usually quite docile. This last week has demonstrated otherwise to me and from what you have told me I am now convinced of her strength of character. She… surprises me,’ Elsie confessed.

‘Indeed,’ he chuckled and fell into a cough. ‘She does that. But you have her intellect too. You mended me rather well and I know you have quite the knowledge of medicinal plants and their applications beyond simple wound care.’

‘She taught me everything,’ Elsie said, rummaging in his knapsack for something specific.

‘Like your grandmother before her,’ Charity confirmed. ‘It’s a family trait; you are all healers and herbalists…’

‘Witches, mama used to say,’ Elsie smiled. ‘White witches.’ Charity looked back at her seriously and again she felt a tickle of anxiety. ‘We aren’t really… witches, Captain. It’s just a little joke.’

He swallowed and looked away.

‘How often do your tonics and your remedies fail, Elsie?’ he asked quietly.

She answered with silence and a frisson of cold perspiration. She knew the point he was making. Rarely, if ever, did her concoctions fail. Her mother’s recipes were moderately successful, the villagers would come to her for help where physicians had failed, but her own? They were almost always effective and rapidly too. Whether applied to wounded farm workers, injured livestock or frail wildfowl, they always worked. The local children used to bring their animals to the estate safe in the knowledge Elsie would heal their beloved pet. She never let them down.

Elsie looked at Charity sitting before her, a man who the night before had bled right through his heavy woollen coat and into hers, whose blood had wetted her hands and arms as she worked on him, whose dressings were saturated and whose breath was shallow, toxins burning within, pulse flickering. Her mother’s poultice had been a skilled attempt to heal a stubborn wound, but Elsie’s bare fingertips had pulled the poison from his flesh and cooled his fever with a touch. He ought to have been dead, but he was very much alive. Because of her.

She suspected he knew exactly what she was. ‘More to her than meets the eye,’ her mother used to say. More than Elsie even admitted to herself at times. They had spoken of her behind her back within her mother’s rooms and put together this plot to free her from Montby. Years before they had spoken of the amulet, the Red Sun and what it would mean to Elsie and to Charity himself. They knew things about her she had never even contemplated. Was there more?

She did not like to think of herself as different but it unnerved her that Charity had such a grasp of her already, had such knowledge of her past. A man she had only just met. He sketched out her character according to an old legend and she fought with his interpretation however accurate it might be. She did not believe in Destiny as preordained, but as something chosen, and she resented the path he tried to place her on, however well she seemed to fit it. And she was afraid. Afraid of what entering his world might mean. Legends and Curses? It was ridiculous. She could not follow him on the basis of such nonsensical claims. Curses could not touch her. She would be just fine on her own. Would she not?

But he wanted to Protect her. He had lived his whole life for that privilege. His whole _life._ And the moment she had even contemplated leaving the estate he had appeared, he had saved her, twice. It had been he her mama had summoned when she needed aid and he who had sacrificed so much already for her safety. Who was Elsie to reject that?

Elsie Fitzjames. The Protected. The idea felt strange. After years of shelter on the estate she kicked against it. She did not want his protection however kindly he offered it, she wanted to stand alone. Besides he was in no fit state to defend anyone, and if he was right about her abilities, she could look after herself. It was he who needed Protection if his story was anything to go by and her mother had seen that. Tried to set him free. He had wandered back from a sense of duty but she could free him once again.

Elsie fetched the tea and medicinal herbs from the table and dropped them in the kettle to brew.

Charity was gazing into the fire, eyes heavy and his breathing shallow once again. The infection in his wound leaking back into his blood despite Elsie’s healing powers. She took a moment to stoke the flames for him. They licked about the base of the kettle and the water popped and bubbled inside. He was shivering again, a sheen of sweat on his brow and his hands tucked beneath the blanket pale and frail. She wrestled with her conscience. He needed her help to make him well, but her sense of independence told her to leave while she could. The more he told her, the more she felt for him and she was certain he intended to keep her safe, but Lord he would kill himself in the process at this rate.

‘Were you happy as a child?’ he asked suddenly.

‘I think so, yes.’

‘And you felt secure?’

‘The house was like a fortress, Captain, I doubt it could have been more secure.’

‘But you felt it, inside… you felt safe?’ he looked up at her with large hazel eyes.

‘I did,’ she reassured, ‘Mine was a small world, I was educated at home, played alone. I found it dull at times but I learned to make myself content with what I had, and I felt safe.’

‘Your mother married well quite deliberately,’ Charity said. ‘For the protection of any future generation. She made it as safe as could be on the estate for a young woman of your lineage otherwise I never would have gone. I’m sorry if I neglected my duties…’

‘You should feel no guilt for leaving at my mother’s suggestion. Nothing untoward happened in your absence. I can count the times I left the grounds on two hands,’ Elsie said.

‘So, can I,’ Charity said, ‘After all I was there whenever it was required. Keeping watch. I could not quit my responsibilities entirely.’

Elsie raised her eyebrows at the thought. ‘You were there? In my youth?’

‘When at all possible. I insisted. Often without telling your mother. The advantage of my job with the Bureau is a certain freedom. No ties that bind, a grand collection of disguises, I could appear at short notice to ensure your safety should your father insist on a little trip here or there. Do you remember that awful jaunt to Brighton when you were fifteen?’

She laughed at the shared memory. ‘How could I forget? I was mortified by my mother’s persistence that we take the waters in March. It was terribly cold.’

Charity chuckled, ‘And do you remember the Punch and Judy show down on the pier?’

‘It was shockingly bad,’ Elsie giggled. Charity glared at her in mock offense. ‘Oh! No? Really? That was you?’

His face broke into a grin, ‘That’s the way to do it!’ he announced in a high-pitched tone.

‘Captain Charity!’ she laughed.

‘It was damned uncomfortable on that frozen pier entertaining ungrateful children,’ he said solemnly, then convulsed in a further shiver. He tugged the blanket up about his shoulders in a miserable gesture. Elsie caught his eye and he looked ashamed at her obvious pity.

‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘We can set off this evening.’

Shaking her head Elsie found cups for their tea. He was not fine at all, but he would be, given time.

‘So those men who came after me last week, last night,’ she asked, ‘Have they always been around? Have I always been in danger from them?’

‘Those specific men? No. Their specific master? Probably not. But danger? Yes, you have always been in danger.’

‘Why specifically? I still don’t grasp why.’

She felt his eyes rest on her face, a look of sadness weighting them.

‘We did well to keep you safe so long,’ he said, ‘I almost believed we would keep you safe forever. That you would break the mould somehow. You have no idea how it pains me to see you in this situation now. If I could have kept you within those walls longer I…’ he flinched and she saw him grit his teeth, his pain returning hard.

‘Captain Charity, please, just tell me. Why did I need protection? Why do any of the women in my family need it? It cannot be our healing powers, they are a force for good.’

‘You have something over which men have fought for centuries, Elsie. While the Red Sun is a curse to me, it brings you fortune,’ he sighed. ‘Protection, Healing, Long Life, Fertility, those are just some of your gifts and while you may use them wisely, there are always those who covet them for themselves.’

‘I don’t understand, I’m just an ordinary woman, truly.’

‘One of a long line of ordinary women forced to play extraordinary roles. Priestesses, Queens and Wise Women, sometimes exalted, sometimes hunted. Witches, even good witches, are always persecuted by some and worshiped by others. Someone always wants their gift. The difficulty comes when the wrong person wants it for themselves.’

Elsie frowned up at him wondering where she fitted into such an illustrious heritage. Queens indeed. Queens of what and where? And why? A few healing potions hardly made her remarkable enough to justify such celebrity. Maybe the original Protected were much more powerful and time and watered down the line. She retrieved the kettle from the fire and poured. Perhaps she would be better off not knowing and going on her way.

‘I’m not sure my ‘talents’ are a gift, Captain, after the week I’ve and, after the last twenty-four hours. If someone needed help I would give it freely. If that’s what this is, if someone is hurt or sick? Let them come. I will help them.’ She swirled the teapot.

‘It isn’t that simple. Magic, Elsie, it’s in your blood. It isn’t safe to give it to just anyone… besides your power is a lot more than straightforward healing.’

‘Magic? Nonsense, you try to frighten me, there is no evidence of Magic within me beyond a few well brewed tonics.’

‘Not yet,’ he said, ‘These things tend to surface under threat, sadly, and I cannot let that happen. It’s my job to get you to safety, to a place no-one can hurt you.’

‘To keep me hidden once again? I’m not sure that is what I want for my future.’

‘To keep you _safe_.’

‘A prisoner.’

‘Alive. And un-persecuted.’

‘And where might this place be?’ Elsie said, biting her lip. She held two full cups of tea in her hands, her palms damp.

‘North,’ he said, ‘To the place our Amulets were forged, on your grandmother’s lands. It is a wild place, protected by enchantments as well as rough terrain. Whoever hunts you cannot do so there if you evoke the correct rituals. We’ll take Aro, make our way today, it’s a long journey but we must get started before they send more men, before they hurt you. Ah…’ Charity shifted in his chair and pulled his blanket down. Through the bandaging Elsie caught the sight of a slow seeping stain.

‘To be escorted by an injured man to a remote wasteland bathed in superstition so I can take part in some unheard of ritual?’ Elsie said. ‘That is my only option?’

He grimaced, ‘It’s a start,’ he said a little desperately, ‘it will be safe. I’ll keep you safe, I promise. You must believe me, Elsie, that is all I want for you. I would die trying.’

‘For the pain,’ she said and offered him a cup, ‘I do believe you,’ she said and held her own in her lap untouched as he drank. ‘I cannot go home, and I have no desire to go South to Lord Montby. North seems a reasonable direction but your safety is important too. You are not well, Captain, you need time to heal. Another day or two at least or that wound will not stay closed.’

‘Oh… no,’ he said firmly, lowering the half-finished cup. He grasped the blanket and tugged it over the creeping bloodstain. ‘We cannot linger here, it is far too dangerous, we must…’

Elsie watched his face.

‘We… must….’ His voice slurred.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said ‘I truly am, but I can’t let you do this. I am grateful for your help, but I will go on alone from here.’

‘Elsie? I…’ he blinked and stared down at the tea before lifting his wide-eyed stare to her face. ‘What have you done?’ he asked.

‘I thought I was content upon that estate, imprisoned like a little bird, but there is a world outside those walls, Captain,’ Elsie said as he battled the sleeping draught, ‘And as much as I appreciate your concern and all that you reported to have done for me, I cannot, will not, bind my future to a man…not my father, not Lord Montby, not a stranger with an Amulet like mine; not even a good man, as I believe you to be, not when there is a chance of freedom. I don’t believe in Destiny as you do, I believe we can forge our own path…’

‘Elsie! Now… don’t be rash, I don’t mean you any harm… if I did… you would know it by now… The Amulet would… I.. you must listen, you _are_ in danger… I can explain…’ he scrubbed at his face desperately. ‘Christ what is in this tea… I… can’t… ‘

‘This may be the only chance I get Captain Charity, I’ve made up my mind… Shh now. Sleep.’

She was kneeling by Charity’s feet as the draught moved through his veins, watching the last of his strength drain from him as a darkness closed in, a sense of unease in her gut but determination in her heart. He had hurt enough on her behalf over the years, as she had, without knowing it, in the birdcage he and her mother had built for her.

‘Please, Elsie, please listen…’ Charity’s eyes finally closed. She smoothed the blanket around his thighs, tucked him in warmly and stood. Elsie bent to kiss his forehead, ran a thumb over the closed cut at his eyebrow he had received when he fought her pursuers in the woods the week before. She wondered how many other scars he bore and hoped that it would be the last.

‘You will wake again shortly, Captain,’ she said softly, ‘and when you do you will feel whole and well. You will dream of all the things you love the best and chose your path quite freely once again… but you will not find me on it. Your Destiny is your own.’

She stepped back from him and his cup fell to the floor and smashed.


	7. Chapter 7

As a learning curve striking out on her own was rather steep for Elsie’s liking, but now that she had committed to it, she had little other choice. The nearest village to the north was several miles, the first few of which had entailed navigating the rough moorland and very much hoping the position of the sun and her knowledge of it was in some way reliable. Thankfully the skies were clear and soon Elsie could spot the village of Westerdale in a dip of the horizon, set her sights and head straight for it. It would take the best part of the day but once there she intended to find suitable accommodation and make a plan.

Elsie of course was rather naïve when it came to how much such accommodation would cost. Her previous experience of the world outside the estate being entirely reliant on her father’s purse and being a lady whose needs were attended to by others she carried little more than a few pennies in her own pockets. Had she had a little experience and a taste for pretty things she might have thought to pawn a bracelet or a ring, but the only jewel she wore was the amulet itself, the clasp of which was still jammed shut and which to most people did not appear of value.

She also underestimated the very real difficulties a lady faced when travelling alone. Without a chaperone she was regarded at best as a young woman seeking short term work in the harvest, and at worst as some sort of low life. Neither opened many doors and she had no desire to work in a field uprooting potatoes to pay her rent.

As evening drew in Elsie found herself seated in the square, on the edge of the well right in the centre, watching workers trail home from the mills and farms, entering into public houses for hearty meals and ale. She had eaten little herself that day, having chosen to carry a light meal of bread and cheese and place her faith in a decent inn on arrival. The journey had been more arduous than she had been used to and she shamefully felt a little faint. Perhaps someone would take pity on her, a well-dressed lady in a bit of a jam.

She glanced down at her bloodstained coat, noted the rusty smears and the dirt from the ditches of the moor and realised what she must look like to any casual observer with her hair out of place and soiled petticoats on display beneath a rip in her dress. She was beginning to think she may have been a little hasty in her break for freedom, though her pride would not let her admit the truth of her situation quite yet. No, she suspected darkness and the cold of the night would do that in another hour’s time.

‘Idiot,’ she mumbled.

‘ ‘Ope you don’t call all your customers tha’,’ a voice commented.

Elsie squinted up at the figure, the setting sun at his back and for a second dared to hope it might be Charity, appearing as he was wont to do when she needed him most, but alas, it was a hardened looking man in his mid thirties, with sunburned leather skin and pale grey eyes. He nodded towards the inn.

‘How much?’ he said.

Elsie frowned. ‘I haven’t asked yet,’ she said, ‘I should imagine it about a shilling for a night.’

‘A night?’ he laughed hard, ‘I only need a few minutes, love.’

‘What?’

‘Round t’back of t’inn. I’ll giv’ee six pence.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Tak it o’leave it,’ he shrugged and she felt her eyes widen at his implication.

‘How dare you!’ Elsie shot up, ‘You disgusting man!’

The man stepped back a pace, raise both hands in a gesture of supplication. ‘Bit ‘igh n mighty for a moll ain’t you?’

‘You… I am a respectable lady!’

He cackled. ‘Could ‘ve fooled me, th’ state of you!’ He glanced over her shoulder, ‘’Ere Bobby, you see this ‘ere moll? Reckons she’s a ‘lady.’

His companion sauntered over, hands in the pockets of his dirtied work trousers.

‘Don’t look like any lady I would know,’ he commented.

‘Offered ‘er sixpence,’ the first man said.

‘How’s about we spilt it?’ Bobby suggested and suddenly the atmosphere changed. Whether it was the presence of two men against one woman, or something unspoken passing between them as they eyed her, Elsie felt the shift clearly and fear flooded her veins. She backed away a few steps, her hands clutching her skirts ready to run and her eyes flicking from shop to inn to cobbled path trying to judge where she should go.

‘Bit skittish ‘ain’t you?’ the first man said, ‘Bobby and me, we jus’ want a little of yer time. Sixpence would get you supper and we get a little of what we like…’

‘Seems fair,’ Bobby said lowly.

‘Please, there’s been a misunderstanding,’ Elsie said scrambling for something which would make them rethink, ‘I… my father…’

‘He about is he?’ Bobby said casting an exaggerated look around the square. In the distance Elsie caught the clatter of a horse’s hooves against the cobbles, but everything else was quiet and deserted, the sun fading quickly in the sky.

‘He’s a very important man…’ she tried.

‘Well now, is that so?’ the first man said, ‘Very important he is, Bob.’

‘Very important,’ Bobby approached her, ‘So important his daughter’s wandering about t’square in a dirty dress. Looks like she spent the night on the moor, to me, like a common slut.’

The first man made a noise of consideration, ‘Don’t think anyone with a father that important would be doing that, eh Bob?’

‘Doubt it. Get ‘er arm Jerry.’

The pair moved in unison, taking an arm each, propelling her back towards the alley by the inn. Elsie screamed and there was a sharp cracking sound, so loud she thought for a moment the bones in her wrist had snapped but she felt no pain. The air about her seemed to flex. The sound of hooves clattered to a halt, there was shout, and then the grip on both sides vanished and everything was bright and hot and fiery, still and silent.

She stood again in the centre of the square, her hand shielding her eyes from something more radiant than the midday sun in the twilight of the evening. She looked about for its source, caught the shapes of the men’s bodies laid out before her, slumped unmoving on the cobbles by the alley. Elsie spun and the light spun with her, lit the faces of the villagers peering terrified from their windows, one or two on the street outside the inn. They shrank back from what they saw, afraid, a soft muttering reaching her ears as its volume grew.

‘Wha..’ Elsie breathed, looking frantically about her, reality seeming to waver about her in veils of illumination.

‘Witch!’ someone said clearly, the word edged with madness. ‘She’s a witch!’ There was a scream from nearby.

Elsie tried to move away, stumbled backwards into the village well. ‘No… wait…’ she said, her tone weak with shock.

And then the seize of a hand about her arm again, the bulk of a horse at her side and Charity’s voice cutting through the shining light about her.

‘You’re safe,’ he said, ‘I’ve got you, Elsie, everything’s all right, you’re _safe_ , d’you hear?’ and the light vanished, replaced by a strength she could not have guessed he possessed as he pulled her easily from the ground. ‘Up… up you come.’

She landed before him in the saddle, his arm tightening about her waist, his free hand gripping the reins and Aro lurched beneath them as they thundered into darkness.

For a moment she struggled to catch her breath, tried to see over his shoulder at the receding village, trying to catch the lights of any pursuers, trying to fathom what had happened, and then with a movement in his body he forced her to look forward and ahead of them, at the moors that flew past her vision, at the starlight and the rising moon. She saw the whites of his teeth gritted close to her, and the shine of his eyes. His breath came hot on her neck and cheek. She tried to steady herself on his arms as the horse galloped forth.

‘I’ve got you,’ he said again, ‘You shan’t fall, just… stay still until I say so.’

They were flying down a road, and then on the moor again. She lost track of their direction and of time, focusing on each hard blow upon her thighs and lower back from the racing horse. She heard Charity’s breathing grow harsher, feared for the wound in his gut and was about to beg him to stop for both their sakes when he pulled hard on the reins and Aro came skidding to a stop. He reared slightly and Charity seized her against his chest before the beast snorted and tossed its head, his hooves pawing at the ground beneath him as he settled.

‘Down,’ Charity said and she slipped sideways from the saddle, the night air suddenly cold on her back without him pressing against her. Elsie saw him dismount with a little difficulty and cross to the rump of the horse to where his knapsack was suspended. He pulled it open, yanked great swathes of material from within and thrust them at her.

‘Put this on,’

‘What?’

‘The dress, change the dress.’

She clutched the bundle and watched aghast as he pulled the cravat from his neck and shrugged off his coat. He jammed them under a nearby bush and roughly pulled open his shirt. In the moonlight his skin was pale and the bandage paler, but for the stain across the centre. Unceremoniously he strapped another layer of linen over the offending wound and retrieved a fresh shirt from the knapsack.

‘Hurry,’ he said without looking at her. ‘Take those off and change, we’ll leave them here and head into the next town. It’s a little bigger than the last, we should be able to lay low, but we can’t have you turning up looking like that.’

‘What?’

‘For God’s sake, Elsie, will you do as you are told,’ he snapped and then immediately passed a hand over his face. She stood stunned and silent as he recovered himself and at last he looked at her, his shirt still open in a vee shape, his uncovered head wild with unruly ringlets and the sweat slick on his face. He was sick. She thought of how weak he had been in the cottage and how much he must have hurt to find her now. To get her to safety. He was sick, and the night had fallen and it was cold.

‘Forgive me,’ he said weakly, ‘but it really is most urgent that we disguise ourselves and move on. The Amulet is active now, it has been witnessed, and word will spread fast. Anyone hunting you now will easily follow the very literal beacon we have lit for them, it will be the talk of the whole of Westerdale in minutes and from there every public house in Yorkshire by tomorrow evening… Christ they may even send their own vigilantes if they are superstitious enough…’

‘What are you talking about?!’

He stepped towards her impatiently and spun her roughly in his hands, his fingers landing on her shoulders and tugging her must hated travelling coat from her. Elsie gasped as it hit the ground and she felt him unhooking one by one the tiny buttons on the back of her bodice. She tried to spin back but he held her firm.

‘No, _enough_ , you _will_ do as I order,’ he said, ‘You may not wish me to keep you safe, young lady, but that is exactly what I will do. That blinding light in the Square? The Red Sun has woken, it killed those two men for laying hands upon you, and now anyone trying to do the same, anyone with _any_ ill intention will suffer the same fate. You’re a walking weapon more powerful than any that man can wield…’

‘They... they’re dead? For trying to hurt me?’

‘Yes,’ his fingers reached the curve of her spine.

‘What? I… then surely that is a good thing, whoever pursues me cannot hurt me now. We do not need to run!’

He pulled the bodice from her, dropped his hands to her waist to untie her skirts, as nimble as any lady’s maid she had employed and far stronger. She sucked in a breath as he tugged at the laces and for a moment everything felt too tight, too close, and a tingle ran over her skin. She struggled to focus on his voice over the sensation.

‘No,’ Charity was saying, ‘This makes our position more tenuous not easier to manage. It draws unwanted attention while offering no real protection. While a man may lose his life for striking you, for physically exerting his superiority, for trying to take what is not his, that Amulet was forged in times long past…’

‘So…? If it protects me, it protects me.’

‘Not against guns,’ Charity finished and dumped her heaving skirts into the pile. ‘These days a man does not need to get close to you to inflict a fatal wound. Makes my position as Protector a lot harder.’ He stepped back from her. ‘Unless I bodily put myself in the line of fire of course… which is… well I’d rather avoid that if possible.’

He stepped back and she saw the fatigue wash over him again, bracing himself on his knees as he stood. He gestured at her vaguely.

‘Elsie, can you…’

‘What now?’

‘I would have thought that was obvious,’ he said and looked at her in despair. His expression just riled her all the more. She had truly never found any man so irritating in all her days, or so much fun to spar with. Though the night was cold she could feel him heating her from within.

‘Well, I do apologise if all this madness is dulling my senses a little and my next step is not apparent to me!’ she said dramatically.

‘You’re standing in the middle of a bloody field in your underthings, girl!’ he said and then coughed wetly into one fist.

‘Well whose fault is that!?’ she retorted with a stamp of her foot.

‘Oh! I suppose you were perfectly all right back there,’ Charity declared, ‘Didn’t need my help at all, didn’t cross your mind once that actually having good old Will turn up out of the blue might be handy?’

She fumed at him, but did not confess that yes, she had been thinking exactly that just minutes before his arrival and how dare he know it but she was indeed very grateful.

‘Get dressed!’ he ordered and annoyed her again.

‘Who are you to tell me to get dressed?’ she quibbled, ignoring the gooseflesh on her arms.

‘The man who undressed you in the first place!’ he shot back. Elsie gawped at his cheek and he pointedly ignored it. ‘The man who saved your life _and_ brought you the latest styles so that you might be both alive and fashionable! The man whose innards are currently seeping into his bandages and who could still be sitting by the fireside in a perfectly adequate cottage, but who now has to ferry you to a local inn and disguise you as his bloody wife to keep you safe because you just had to take the situation into your own hands despite my warnings! Is there anything more you wish to hear of as validation for my request?’

She glared at him, chest heaving in the confines of her white corset, petticoats sticking out petulantly at all angles and Charity, as though suddenly realising for the first time the social implications of her shocking state of near nudity turned from her sharply. ‘Just… Put some clothes on and we can get going!’ he said and waited awkwardly with his hand pressed over his wound.

She wavered, but she would not show it, nor could she show the smile tugging at her lips. ‘Fine!’ she said instead. Elsie grabbed the clean skirts he had given her and flounced them open. ‘But I shall need you for the bodice.’

She heard him sigh. ‘Yes, dear,’ he said.


	8. Chapter 8

He suited the blue, it brought out his eyes, though she could never be quite certain of their colour, changing like magic depending on his circumstance and on what he wore. Kitted out in a superbly tailored coat of dark brown and a cobalt waistcoat with fine gold trim, Charity looked every inch the gentleman and for the briefest of moments Elsie was rather proud to be his wife. Until she remembered she was not, and she was only loitering in the bar of the Cock and Rabbit Inn at almost midnight because he had insisted they push on as far as they could from Westerdale after an inopportune accusation of witchcraft and the murderous actions of the silver pendant suspended around her neck.

It had been a rather taxing couple of days.

Elsie fiddled by the fire and waited, impatient for some rest and food and perhaps even a wash. They had barely spoken on the hard journey North and in addition to her physical needs she was longing to talk to her Protector in private.

‘Elizabeth.’

She extracted one hand from her glove and inspected her nails, ragged from her exploits on the moor the night before. She wanted to know details. Where they were going, what would happen next? Her grandmothers lands, he had said, much further north than this inn, but the specifics were still sketchy and she did not fully comprehend how he had found her beyond the umbrella explanation that was used increasingly of late entitled ‘magic.’

‘Elizabeth!’ Charity’s voice said sharply. She looked up. Oh, of course. Elizabeth. Elizabeth Masters. Pay attention.

‘Sorry, _darling_ ,’ she said. He narrowed his eyes just slightly at her tone. Too much? Too facetious? She had trouble curbing her tongue when he was around, the temptation to tease and prickle him often outweighing her slowly growing fondness for the man. Just why he brought that side of her out so prominently was a mystery, but there it was. He had turned her into a saucy wench, it seemed.

‘Our room is ready now,’ he said as lightly as he could and offered her his arm.

‘Our?’

‘Yes, my love, _our_ ,’ Charity tucked her arm into his and gave a slight tug to bring her into line. He cast a jolly look at the innkeeper who had the audacity to wink at him salaciously in encouragement. ‘It’s all still terribly new to her,’ Charity explained.

‘What is?’ Elsie asked, feeling out of the loop.

‘Married life,’ he ground out. ‘Now come along, it is rather late and you have not been feeling yourself since that terrible incident with the horse, _have you_ dear?’

‘Oh, yes…. That,’ Elsie said trying to remember the particulars of their ‘movements.’ A story Charity had concocted in breathless whispers out the back of the inn less than half an hour before, the honeymooning pair falling foul of some perverse riding accident which had resulted in him shooting her mare and taking her upon Aro to the nearest town for the night.

The innkeeper moved ahead of them and mounted the narrow wood stair, while Charity quickly manipulated his ‘wife’ in front of him and compelled her to follow while he took up the rear. The steps creaked beneath them and the innkeeper’s candle quickly became the only light as they moved past several closed doors vibrating with the sound of snores and approached the gable end of the building. So far, so good. The fewer souls who spotted them, the better.

‘I hope you will find it comfortable, Mrs Masters,’ the man said, pushing open the oak door, ‘Best we have in the building, fit for the Queen herself. I’ve lit the fire for you and there’s a basin of warm water for your amenities. It’s a little late for something hot to eat but I’ve put together some victuals from the kitchen and left them for you both. Cook will see to you in the morning and the maid will be in first thing to empty the pot.’

‘The p…?’ Elsie started. Charity nudged her ribs with his elbow. ‘Thank you,’ she said meekly and shot him a glare.

‘Goodnight Mr Masters, Mrs Masters.’

As soon as the door swung shut behind her Elsie untangled herself from Charity’s grip and opened her mouth.

‘Don’t,’ he said holding up one hand to stop her protest.

‘A tepid bowl of water and a chamber pot!’ Elsie said ignoring his instruction. ‘Hardly fit for the Queen is it? I was hoping for a bath.’

Charity strode to the corner of the room, tossing his top hat onto the dresser and shrugging off his coat, to abandon it in the same place. The silk of his waistcoat was sky blue to the rear, nipped at his waist with a silver buckle, and by his side the holster of his pistol hung darkly.

‘I’ve been hoping for a bath for months, darling,’ he said, unstrapping it, ‘Can’t remember the last time I indulged.’ Elsie wrinkled her nose. ‘Good lord I do wash,’ he laughed, ‘I just meant… oh never mind. Adventuring does not lend itself to luxury, you ought to get used to it and anyway,’ he gestured around the room with the gun, ‘it’s rather better than the cottage, no?’

The pistol was deposited. The ammunition belt at his hips slung aside. He eased himself into the chair by the fire and stretched out his booted legs.

‘It’s still a little basic,’ Elsie said nudging the chamber pot under the canopied bed with an equally booted but daintier toe. ‘I think the innkeeper has tickets on himself. And his rooms.’

‘I hate to point this out, but you are not actually the Queen, Elsie.’

‘According to you I’m descended from one,’ she said a little sullenly and pulled off her remaining glove. ‘I’ve seen better equipped stables.’

‘Speaking as a man who has slept in a few I can only disagree. Besides, it’s merely for a couple of days. ’

‘A couple of days? You asked him just for a night! How long are we staying here for?’ Elsie asked. Charity shifted in his seat, unhooked his watch chain and started unbuttoning his waistcoat. Elsie began wondering if he would keep any layers on at all at such a rate of undress, but then he did appear to have a good many layers to begin with.

‘Well, I’m not sure yet,’ he admitted, ‘But we should be safe for a little while, we’ll make some plans tomorrow, I’m finding it rather difficult to think.’ He yawned and unfastened his shirt, the Red Moon glinting from its comfortable place on his chest, a crimson bead of reflected firelight dancing like a tiny imp about the walls. He bent a little and Elsie felt it cross her face on its journey, strangely warm and familiar and the tension in her shoulders lessened. Charity was poking about curiously in his bandages. Elsie could not see any seepage and apparently neither could he.

‘The dressing should last until morning,’ Elsie said, ‘Best leave it until then, the herbs will still be potent within.’

‘Thank you. Yes, it seems secure.’

She hovered, taking in the room with its heavy tight drawn curtains and tapestried bedspread. No fewer than four plush pillows and a mustard coloured quilt trimmed in claret covered the mattress. The Red Moon’s light skittered across it as the captain fidgeted nearby. She felt a sudden heaviness in her legs.

Charity meanwhile leaned his head back and shut his eyes, all conversation ostensibly over. Elsie stared at his profile in the firelight for a moment and then, deciding she was too fatigued for further debate, pulled off her scarf and untied her bonnet, adding it to the pile of discarded clothes on the dresser. She sat down heavily on the end of the large bed and the springs popped under her but the thing itself felt deep and soft. She eyed the plates left out for both of them filled with cold meats and cheeses.

‘You should eat something,’ Charity said drowsily with his eyes closed.

‘So should you.’

‘Bit tired,’ he said.

‘Then sleep.’

‘I’m trying,’ he said.

‘You can’t sleep there!’

‘Then where do you suggest?’

‘The bed of course.’

Charity opened one eye with difficulty. ‘That’s hardly appropriate,’ he said.

‘I thought we were married.’

‘One might think so the way we have been bickering, at least that part of the ruse is convincing. But no… I decline your offer of the bed, it is yours. I am a gentleman.’

‘You are an injured gentleman.’

‘I am much recovered, thank you.’ He shut his eye again and folded his hands protectively over his wounded belly.

His resistance annoyed her much more than she expected. The mattress beneath was inviting, plush and warm. She wanted to crawl across it and curl into a ball, retreat into the safety of sleep, and increasingly she wanted him with her. Near her at least. He made her feel safe. She watched his amulet rise and fall on a soft bed of dark hair and warm skin under his shirt, briefly touched her own jewel at her throat. She would have to try another tact.

‘It will help keep up the pretence, if we share. What if that maid comes in first thing to find you asleep in the chair? She will think me cruel to my new husband casting him out of the marital bed so soon!’

‘I’ll make sure I am awake at dawn, to save your reputation.’

‘How ironic, Captain Charity, that you must convince the staff that we are intimate while all the time snoozing fully dressed in your chair refusing to share a lady’s bed.’

His lip twitched. ‘Most unlike me, I can assure you…. And I do wish you would address me as Will, what will the man think if you insist on calling me Captain over breakfast?’

‘That I have the utmost respect for my husband?’

He snorted. ‘It’s not exactly affectionate. We are supposed to be newly weds, in the heated throes of passion during these our first nights together.’ He gestured with both hands and a wiggle of his fingers. Elsie caught the flash of a signet ring he must have donned for the role of Mr Masters. It suited him. Like the blue.

‘The heated but completely silent throes that you are taking part in from your chair by the fire…’ she countered to make him smile.

‘What we do in here is our own business but out there…’ he warned.

‘Oh, out there I must simper over you, because you are such a catch, and pretend there have been heated throes to save _your_ reputation.’ She saw his eyes crinkle at that although he kept them resolutely closed against her teasing.

‘Now now, don’t issue me a challenge young lady. Just… Try and look like you are a little bit in love with me, there’s a good girl, I know that must be terribly difficult.’

Elsie laughed and felt herself soften. His request for her love would not after all be too difficult to fulfil. Rakish he might be, but he was unquestionably charming, and amusing, and, she had to admit, very, very brave to the point of foolishness, and all for her. Quite the storybook hero when she thought of it, and she did, more by the minute, drawn to him like some irresistible force. She turned her amulet on its chain, over and over until it was wound too tight, then let it spin free. Like the Red Moon, now the Sun caught the firelight and flickered across Charity’s sleepy features.

He looked uneasy and unwell, and moreso when silent and unable to distract her with his charm. In the chair he slid down a little until he could rest his head on one of the high wings and she watched the line of his adam’s apple bob as he swallowed, shadows forming on the contours of his face and in a crease between his brows. His breathing was slowing and deepening, but he clearly was not comfortable.

‘You spent last night in a chair…’ she tried again more gently. ‘Two nights is excessive. Come, stop this now.’

‘The bed is yours, I would not dare threaten your honour, a maid such as you cannot go sharing a sleeping space with a stranger, however dashing,’ he said.

‘Why, you assume I am a maid and that some dashing young man has not already had his wicked way.’

His eyes shot open.

‘I… but you’ve hardly been off the estate… I… I would have known! Which man _dared_ to… which braggard… I will kill him… to take advantage in such a way… I…’ he looked absolutely stricken and she suddenly realised that it was not for fear of her being a fallen woman, but a protective instinct through and through. A genuine horror that he failed her and left her vulnerable.

‘Hush, I’m teasing, of course I am a maid,’ she said quickly and stood to calm him, ‘I am touched by your outrage that anyone should threaten my virtue, but I can assure you I am as pure and untouched as the driven snow.’

He slumped in relief. ‘Good… good,’ he rubbed a hand over his face, looking more exhausted than ever.

‘And given the state of you I hardly think I am in any trouble now,’ Elsie said, ‘You can barely move, man.’

‘Well it’s been a rough day,’ he said with dignity, trying to sit up straighter, ‘I am not at my best. What with the gaping wound in my side and the poisoned tea someone gave me in the guise of a painkiller.’

Elsie stopped her progress to the dresser with her back to him. ‘Ah,’ she said.

‘What was in it?’

‘Just a little _papaver somniferum_ ,’ she said lightly, smiling at him.

He cocked his brow at her. ‘Opium.’

‘Yes, it is perfectly acceptable for pain.’

‘I am not naïve to it, Elsie, but it was rather stronger than usual.’

‘Ah, well it was mixed with others.’

‘Go on.’

‘Valerian and lemon balm and a little mint for taste…’

‘How thoughtful.’

‘I had to be sure you would drink it.’

‘You really are incredibly stubborn,’ he remarked. ‘And resourceful.’

‘So are you. To be honest I thought it would knock you out until nightfall.’

‘It may well have it had not been for this thing,’ he fished the Red Moon out from beneath his collar. ‘Apparently mine is active as well. Woke up to a room bathed in light and a burning sensation at my throat. Glowing footsteps no less marking out your direction. Damn thing didn’t let up until I was almost at the gates of town.’

‘Good lord.’

‘Gave me quite a shock I can tell you.’

‘I did not mean you any harm,’ Elsie said. Charity looked up at her seriously from his seat. In the light of the fire he was disarmingly handsome. He raised one eyebrow to prompt her to explain further, and suddenly all she could manage was a murmured apology.

‘I’m sorry, for today.’

‘Are you?’ he asked. ‘You regret what you did?’

‘Well I…’ she stopped. ‘Not entirely no,’ she admitted.

Charity’s eyes widened.

‘I mean to say, obviously it did not work out well for me, and I will admit I was lucky not to be harmed but… well I had to try. If I had not I always would have wondered what might have happened, would I have succeeded on my own? I’m not one to simply do as I am told, Captain… William… _Will_ ,’ she corrected.

He looked at her without expression for a long moment and the mirth trickle from his lips in the form of a surprisingly charming giggle. She watched his shoulders jiggle with merriment and he held the amulet to his teeth as he chuckled. It glinted between his fingers and oh, his laugh was the very essence of purity and pleasure.

‘Why are you laughing?’ she demanded, utterly failing in her quest to be upset with him. ‘I could have got us both killed and now I tell you I don’t even regret it. You should be angry! I am a liability to you. The worst kind of young lady companion!’

‘Oh you are quite the opposite,‘ he tittered, ‘Would you like me to be angry?’ He looked up again with tears in his eyes, but the joy of his smile had travelled now to glow in his dark pupils and fill out his bunched cheeks.

‘I probably deserve it,’ she conceded gloomily.

‘For showing an adventurous spirit?’ he asked, ‘Oh Elsie, I of all people cannot be angry at that. Irritated in passing, yes, and I very much was when I woke up this afternoon and found you gone, not to mention rather concerned, groggy and stiff. It is bloody hard mounting a skittish horse when one can barely see for opium, _and_ on that note I would like to mention that I do not appreciate being drugged into a stupor by the very person I’m trying to save and whose well being is and always has been at the very top of my agenda, it’s ungrateful Elsie, damnably ungrateful.’

Elsie looked at her hands dutifully.

‘But I do admire your _carpe diem_ attitude even if your actual planning and execution lacks something to be desired,’ he finished. Elsie could not resist a somewhat smug smile.

Charity’s giggles subsided and he sank back in the chair again with a small groan, his hand at his side again. She watched his face blanch pale and he coughed a little, the glaze of fever creeping into his eyes. ‘Please excuse me,’ he said. ‘I really am frightfully worn out.’

‘It is I who should be excused, I have treated you discourteously,’ Elsie conceded. ‘I cannot now doubt your sincerity, Will and whatever the truth is behind the Red Sun, whatever may occur, we appear to be in this together.’

‘That is gracious of you,’ he smiled tiredly. ‘I forgive you, for the venomous tonic too by the way, what’s a drop of poison between friends.’

Friends. Elsie watched his face, the exhaustion in every plane of it, the scars hidden within the laughter lines, the sorrow deep in his bright and ever-changing eyes. Everything he had told her of his childhood, of his job, of his role as her Protector had pointed towards loneliness beneath the shine of his charisma and easy manner. She stepped forward and held out her hand.

‘If Fate has decreed that we must take a journey together,’ she said, ‘It would please me very much, if we could be friends for its duration.’

He had dimples when he smiled and his lips were soft on the back of her hand. So unexpectedly soft.

‘It would please me too,’ he said, squeezing her fingers.

She caught the shine of the Red Moon beneath his jawline and the firelight in his eyes. The words were out before she even thought of their true meaning.

‘Come, share the bed,’ Elsie said.

His eyes dropped to the Red Sun and she expected him to let go her hand a moment later, reminded of his role and of her purity, but instead he stood. Close enough that she could feel his breath upon her face. Close enough to feel the heat of him through her clothing. A full head of height between them, he looked down at her kindly and she held her breath as his lips parted, expecting him to bridge the gap between their mouths with the skilled tilt of his head.

Instead his hands dropped to her waist and pressed, spinning her to face the bed, and he unhooked the first of the eyelets on her bodice. Elsie let her head drop forward, pulled her long hair out the way and accepted his aid in silence, each breath coming to her shallowly, despite him loosening her dress.

She had no lady’s maid to help her, after all.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's basically a whole chapter of sexual tension... as Magic tries to have its wicked way.

The fire was growing low, the logs crumbling to ash, white and grey amongst the heat of dying flames. They shifted and fell against the grate with soft clunks, the wood flaring for a moment before its edges blackened and melted, shards of timber like splinters curling back upon themselves, thinner than matchsticks, burning brightly and vanishing. Elsie looked to her right in the shadows, at Will Charity’s profile as he rested on the pillow, eyes closed and breathing regular. He had been asleep over an hour, but there was no respite for her despite her fatigue. The Red Sun burned at her throat, uncomfortable and tight. She found herself addressing it in her thoughts like another living person and it was responding in kind.

_Wake him, touch him, tell him we command it._

Beneath Will’s thin shirt the Red Moon shone with a longing eye and she knew his amulet too had a voice that whispered in his dreams. Strange forces were at work. Strange and powerful forces.

The logs shifted again, and Elsie looked back at the fire. What had happened between them in the course of a single evening, a single day? For something had changed at the moment he approached her by the bed, when a voice she was sure had been her own had told him to share the space. She had been drawn to Will like magic as he stood over her, an invisible and silken tie between them, wrapping around her each time she met his eyes, to pull her closer.

She lay and recalled the details from the hours that had passed. Dreamlike she had felt him, sensed him. She remembered the touch of his hands on her back as he unfastened the bodice. The blink of the amulet’s red light on the walls, on her face, on her skin. His fingertips amongst the ties of her skirts, catching the weight of them as they fell from her, as she stepped away and turned to him in nothing but her corset and chemise, her petticoats and stockings. And the command, thrumming in her blood, her own thoughts and yet another’s.

_Bare me. Take me. Join with me._

Watching him as he looked at her, she was certain he felt it too. They way his breath halted for a second, the slight flush to his cheeks, the way he grasped the bundle of taffeta, from which he had relieved her, tight to his chest, his fingers working in it with restless preoccupation. She could see it in his eyes, the same link between them, the same longing. Confusing and unanticipated, come from nowhere, but oh, so strong. It clutched at her organs, her skin burned with need for him. She kept looking at his mouth, open and wet.

He saw it. She was certain. He felt it. He heard the same voice within.

And then as quickly as the spell seemed to take them both, he stepped away and tried to break it, clearing his throat, folding the skirts into a semblance of order, storing them on the dresser. He extracted his pipe and moved to the fireplace, warmed himself by leaning on the mantle. Elsie stood at the foot of the bed, stunned, exposed, a coolness on her gooseflesh skin, and feeling more alone than she had all day. Even when traversing empty fields and busy market squares surrounded by strangers, she had felt more certain of herself than at that moment. She was bereft, and the world grew dark. He was right there with her in the room and yet, when Will Charity turned his back, it was as though the sun had gone out.

And the one at her throat burned bright for the need of him, whispering.

_He tries to resist, but he will fail. I am more powerful. He belongs to me._

The Red Sun grew heavier and hotter, and by the mantle, in the mirror, Elsie saw the Moon glow fiercely at Will’s neck, through the fabric of his shirt. It _would_ be seen and felt and heard. He could hear it as well as she heard the Sun, whispering the same sentiments, commanding him to her.

‘You should see to your ablutions,’ he said with forced tones. He clamped the pipe stem between his teeth and closed his eyes, took his weight on one leg and waited motionless. ‘Go on now, please,’ he said, ‘You can be assured of my discretion while you complete them.’

Elsie fumbled with the towels and soap and water. There was a tension in the room. The ease between them that had developed, shattered, replaced with the heaviness of unresolved desire and the rigidity of a man who would not bend to the will of his body or hers. She was both angered and at a total loss. Her inexperience with men rendering her inept but the voice of the amulet ordering from her a response to its demands. The soap slipped from her hand and splashed into the bowl. She jumped. Every nerve on fire.

Elsie was unsure quite what she had expected when she had summoned him to bed, but she had not expected this, this distance between them, a few straining feet of social convention preventing the amulets’ connection. She must overcome it, she had to, there was suddenly nothing more important in the world than to feel his arms about her. In her mind’s eye she saw a flurry of bare skin, felt the press of lips, the drag of his body against her own, and inside her a ripple of anticipation, an ache she’d never felt before. She hesitated on her way back to the bed, her palm sticky on the front panel of her corset, her eyes on the rigid set of his shoulders, the determined way he stood there ignoring his body’s nagging, the Red Moon’s will. But Charity was not for moving, his principles were too strong, his loyalty to his role as her Protector too entrenched no matter what his own feelings might be.

_Break him then. I command it. He cannot deny me._

The Elsie of a week ago might have been horrified at what she had been contemplating doing with this man. She most certainly would be horrified at her current sense of disappointment and of loss. Of helplessness and longing, of the strongest temptation to throw herself upon him and plead for his embrace. Of her willingness to listen to the Curse. The Elsie of a week ago would remind her that her virtue was intact, and as a respectable young lady that was as it should be. Her disgraceful impulses should be ignored, boxed and discarded and Charity should be celebrated for his reserve and gentlemanly behaviour.

But the Elsie of this week answered to an older and more primal mistress whose laws were more engrained in flesh than those imposed by church or society. She stood in the shadow of Charity’s figure and felt every inch of it heavy on her, mystery and darkness sinking within her skin like rich molasses, permeating her body and her soul. She had known him merely days and she could no longer imagine a world where she did not crave his gaze, his voice, his touch. Her mind was wild with it. Her skin was burning. She looked down at her pale hands and saw a tremor there. How could anyone hold such power over her so quickly and yet be so welcome?

Wishing him to step back from the fire but seeing that he would not until she was settled, Elsie crawled into bed, the whale bone corset still secure about her but her petticoats detached and laid across a chair. She felt stifled and far too warm, longed to rip her thin chemise free from where it skirted her knees and protected her modesty. She longed to claw the ribbons of her corset loose but instead she tugged the whole thing down an inch, pushed her breasts full into view.

_Make him see. Make him hunger._

‘I’m ready,’ she said, ‘You may turn about.’

Charity glanced back at last and quickly averted his eyes.

‘Make yourself decent, please,’ he said.

She pulled the covers over her legs but left her top half exposed. She saw his gaze flicker.

_Look at me._

But the voice was growing desperate now, she could feel it deep in her throat begging to be spoken aloud.

_Look at me!_

With his back to her again, Will slowly tapped out the tobacco from his pipe into the fire and the room was infused with the scent of cinnamon and vanilla. She had noted it earlier as a vague sweetness permeating the wool of his coat, but now the perfume was intoxicating and her head spun. There was a glow all about him, whether real or imagined she could not tell, but like a candle he drew her moth’ s eye over all else. Elsie watched as he shrugged out of his waistcoat and laid it gently aside.

‘I can still take the chair,’ he said without looking at her. His voice was a curious mix of tone.

‘No need.’

‘Elsie I…’ he turned to her side on and the light of the fire seemed to illuminate the white of his shirt as it gaped from his chest. The contours of his body stood out starkly and she felt heat beneath her corset travel to her face. ‘I think there is something…’ he shut his eyes briefly. ‘The amulets, I have the impression there is a force at work here.’ His voice sounded distant.

‘Oh?’ she gripped the edge of the coverlet. She knew exactly what he meant but did not have the words. It was all she could do to say anything at all. She could feel it pulling at them now, coming and going in rhythmic waves of pleasure.

_Touch him._

‘You and I…’ he started, ‘We were never supposed to…to even meet and now...’

‘We’ve crossed a line.’

‘Some might say that is what the amulets would encourage us to do. Cross a very particular line.’

‘You... you do feel it then?’ she said, breath held tight in her chest. ‘This… thing?’

‘Lord, Elsie, of course! I am not a bloody monk! I recognise the sensations of lust!’

She almost laughed but for the tension she could feel between them. Charity was the least monk like of any of the men she had met in her sheltered lifetime. A man who oozed charisma in both his words and his actions, whose arrogance succeeded only in revealing his well-earned confidence, a man who clearly knew his way about a bodice, whose wink alone had probably seduced a dozen barmaids and whose hands, whose hands… Again, the remembered the touch of his fingertips on her spine and shivered.

‘What does it mean do you think?’ Elsie asked trying to hide a tremble in her voice.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know exactly, it is beyond my knowledge of the Curse, no Protected has ever shared such a proximity with her Protector and… Christ, I don’t know.’

Will scrubbed his face in anguish and then stood with hands on hips. His belt was undone and her eyes kept dipping to it and the one unfastened button at his waist. The more she studied him the more she saw that pleased her. He had a fine set about his hips, the taut material of his trousers hugging his thighs and tight across the insistent bulge at his front.

‘I’m tempted to say I don’t care,’ Elsie said dragging her eyes up, ‘That whatever it means we are helpless to it, that it is preordained and we can only follow its command.’

She saw his gaze flick to her wantonly.

‘You don’t believe in Fate, you said. When I suggested its role in this at the cottage…’

‘I capitulate,’ she said softly. ‘To it, to you. I am yours. Completely, Will.’

The whites of Charity’s lower teeth glinted as he tried to steady his breathing and his eyes looked dark and wild. The expression sent a thrill through Elsie’s body, and God if he was not but a moment from breaking, she could almost taste him, his need, thick in the air.

‘Elsie, we have to be careful,’ he said drawing strength from somewhere. ‘You are being hunted. The amulets are active and we shouldn’t even be in each other’s company. These are uncharted waters. There is magic at work here…. and to what ends we can’t be certain. There will be consequences, they are nearly always awful, Elsie, I would not see you hurt for all the…’

‘Perhaps this isn’t magic,’ she said taking a different tact, ‘Perhaps it has nothing to do with the amulets at all.’

He shook his head firmly, pointed to emphasise his words. ‘That amulet had me staggering half drugged across fields to follow a path of golden footsteps, Elsie, and as comely as you are, I am not so weak willed as to disintegrate at the mere flash of a lady’s undergarment. I _can_ contain myself…. Usually… something is wrong.’

Elsie watched him struggle and Will very deliberately looked at the floor as he continued, a hand bracing himself against the dresser. A low glow came from his amulet.

‘No, this is a spell, a curse,’ he moaned and the deep tone of it shot through her. ‘I think we can be assured that these jewels want us to be close to one another for whatever reason. Very close indeed. I had thought it was just for your Protection, hence it drove me to follow you, but you are quite safe here beside me now and the damn thing has been growing worse all evening, it’s like a voice in my mind, whispering temptations… showing me things, images I…… I…’ he grabbed the Red Moon and squeezed his fist around it, eyes shut. A shudder ran through his body.

‘It shows me too, I’ll wager the same pictures… if I close my eyes I see you close to me, above me…’ the Red Sun seemed to tighten, its heat pouring into her, her pulse quickening on its command. ‘I see you, inside me, moving inside me,’ Elsie breathed, ashamed, thrilled, desperate.

_Please Will._

He bit his lip. ‘I… God, _God.._ ’

‘Will…’

‘No! I am your Protector, not your lover… I cannot be your lover… this has to stop.’

There was real anguish in his features, and she could see his breath coming quickly. With a sudden impulse he grabbed his discarded coat and made for the door.

‘Will!’

‘I need some air, I cannot think.’

The door closed over with a bang, the Red Sun’s light dancing briefly over its panels before it stilled and vanished, leaving Elsie dazed and alone. The tension lifted, the light within the room appeared to change. Even the scent of Will’s discarded tobacco seemed to wane. Time, which had surrounded them in an impenetrable private sphere, began to move again. She blinked and absorbed the silence, the clearer quality of the air around her, felt the heat drain from the Red Sun at her throat.

Its voice seemed to echo as it faded from her mind, but its message would not leave her.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even more sexual tension and a meeting of souls.

He had come back of course. A half hour or so later when the fever between them had cooled sufficiently and his fatigue had ordered him reluctantly to bed, but he could barely look at her. They did not speak, his features pinched with anxiety, and she knew he feared the escalation of their desires. The intensity of the evening had taken it out of them both, but it was now she remembered he was sick and his wound still poisoned, when the candle was extinguished and the shadows gathered underneath his eyes. She had nodded to him in reassurance as he lingered by the bed uncertainly, and even the Red Sun’s voice stayed silent. She had to let him rest. If she gave any indication of the turmoil in her flesh he would be back on the chair in moments and worsen his physical state.

Relieved and clearly exhausted Will had stopped only to pull off his boots before crawling on top of the covers and closing his eyes. He kept a highly respectable distance between them, his right side barely supported by the mattress. Elsie had curled on her side and pretended to sleep, but no relaxation came. Almost a soon as he had returned the restlessness and longing in her blood had too, and eventually she had given up and sat under the bed’s canopy feeling the weight of the pendant on her skin and the heat of the fire on her face. She had hooked her arms about her knees and stayed that way, trying to be a virtuous maid and let him sleep undisturbed, while every fibre of her being instructed her to creep closer to the body by her side.

_Touch him. Wake him._

Hours passed. Still she lay and watched the flames as they died. Listened to the echo of the Amulets’ commands as their lights dimmed at their throats. Heard her own heart take over the longing for his touch. She watched Charity’s sleeping profile. Recalled over and over the events of the evening. The prickling tension, Will’s fraught expression, the haste with which he had fled the room. His desire only to protect her, greater than the needs of his own flesh.

She realised eventually that she was counting he chimes of the town clock and that they had struck three. Shaking herself from her thoughts she watched as Will murmured in his sleep and turned towards her, the dark curls on his head a mess. He buried his cheek in the pillow and frowned. He looked precious that way. Precious and very young. She wanted to protect him, to hold him. She wanted to _touch_ him. And those urges came from somewhere within her, even when the amulet was still and quiet.

Elsie gave up her observation of the fading fire, its components lost now to darkness but for a stray spark or ember carried on the updraft. She lay as close to Will as she dared and watched his face, let herself bathe in the warmth of his breath as he slept. Her fingers crept towards his shirt and with her hips she edged forward on her side until she was almost pressed against him, but too afraid to make the final inches. The amulet would have given her the courage, insisted she close the gap, but it was sleeping now. Will burned like a furnace, his shirt damp with sweat, the rich scent of it sharp in her nostrils, sharp enough to make her skin tingle, and then he moaned in his sleep and it sounded too much like pain.

‘Will? Will, what is it?’

‘Mm… ah…’ she saw his brow flinch and his hand come to his stomach. He seemed to realise too late that when he had moved, he had rolled straight onto the wound. He heaved backwards, flopping onto the mattress with a rush of breath. ‘Ah… damn.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Elsie said, her trance breaking, ‘I should have woken you when you rolled! I didn’t think!’

‘How long have I been like that?’

‘Just a few minutes, I think.’ Or an hour, or more. She could have watched him in his slumber half the night and been none the wiser.

‘Apparently I sleep like the dead,’ he said groggily, if laying upon an open gash caused by a sword does not wake me from it.’ He clutched at the bandage beneath his shirt as though to press the discomfort away and grimaced.

‘You are altogether too accustomed to pain, I think,’ Elsie said. ‘It would have woken any other man straight away, but you endured it.’

‘Endurance could be my nickname, my dear, William ‘Endurance’ Charity, that’s me… Also William ‘Lucky’ Charity, that one is more ironic, I’d much prefer William ‘Indestructible’ Charity, I have the scars to prove it if anybody quibbles, … Ugh..’ he stopped and prodded the wet sounding bandage, ‘I think it is leaking. It would seem I am Indestructible but… somewhat leaky,’ he said tiredly and made to lift himself up. Elsie laid a hand on his chest.

‘Let me, Mr Indestructible, you are exhausted, I can take a look.’

His eyes met her sharply and his superficial joviality was dealt a killer blow, ‘I’m not sure that’s wise… after earlier I mean.’ She saw him swallow.

She ignored him and pressed again on his chest until he gave way.

‘How are you even awake?’ Will asked as he sank back. ‘You must have walked 12 miles yesterday at least…’

‘I am not so unfit I cannot walk a few miles.’

‘Most young ladies...’ he started.

‘As we have established, I am not most young ladies.’

‘No, I suppose you have proved that. Not every young lady has such a profound effect on Old Charity.’ He winked.

‘You are incorrigible. You were distraught before and now you jest!’

His lips quirked. ‘You should be proud of yourself,’ he said.

‘Will!’

‘Alright, just trying to lighten the otherwise Cursed and Dangerous Atmosphere. It’s been a tiring and distressing business all round. Which brings me to my point.’

‘Which is? Finally?’

‘That you ought to be in the land of nod by now, my girl.’

‘I could not settle,’ Elsie said distractedly lifting his shirt. ‘After…. That business…Before.’

‘Oh… ah… of course,’ Will looked away his confidence crashing about him once again. ‘I was not thinking. The um… the mutual ah... agitation we experienced. It rather lingers doesn’t it…? I feel it too, you know, it’s not that I’m completely unaffected, took me an age to get a grip in fact… I just, with this thing…’ he gestured at the wound, ‘And the remains of that sleeping tonic, I couldn’t keep my eyes open no matter how alluring you were. No offense, you understand. If I was at full capacity, I’m certain I would still be wrestling with the considerable temptation you embody…’

She looked at him curiously, at his awkward and somewhat ashamed expression. Was he apologising for falling asleep, for potentially making her feel unwanted? Was the Cocky Captain ashamed that he had left alone to her Charity Induced Bodily Torment and had done nothing to put her out of her misery? How inconsiderate of him, and he a gentleman too! She glowered at him and he smiled a smile she was sure he had used to smooth his passage with many a lady he had successfully gone on to bed before her, and almost reprimanded his cheek when she felt a pulse of something pleasant and yet torturous at her centre. Whatever he meant by that sheepish grin, it was damnably attractive.

‘You still think it is the amulets?’ she asked unwrapping the bandage. ‘That have such an effect on us.’

‘Must be,’ Will looked at the canopy above as her fingers charted his wound. ‘Although I’ve stolen a few hearts in my time I’ve never experienced anything quite as powerful. It has to be magic.’

‘I wouldn’t know, I am rather naïve to these things as you can imagine.’

‘Yes, well quite, which is why I took myself away. Out of respect for your chastity.’

‘Hmm,’ Elsie said. ‘Out of respect for my chastity or out of fear you would not be able to resist? You need not have literally run from the room, Will, it was a bit… upsetting.’

‘That’s just the problem, I needed very much to run from the room, upsetting or not, I was on the verge of…’

‘Of what?’ she asked pausing her examination. She felt the rhythmic shift of his belly under her hands as he breathed, the soft flesh expanding and falling gently. Oh, but he felt good, warm and solid and good.

‘Of something most ungentlemanly,’ he finished.

‘How shocking, did you consider I might not have minded such a thing?’ she prodded the wound a little harder than she had meant to.

Will flinched at her touch and her fingers came away wet with blood before he could reply. ‘Is it bad?’ he asked instead.

‘It is poisoned still, but it is too dark to really tell, wait I’ll light a lamp…’

‘No…’ Will’s hand covered her wrist. ‘It can wait ‘til morning. Please try and rest. Lie down. You must sleep at some point and things are perhaps a little… calmer now? No? Please tell me it’s all a bit calmer, I don’t think I could handle more of… before.’

Reluctantly she curled up beside him again, but this time he kept his gaze averted. The room settled about them, growing cold without the fire. Every inch of Else’s skin tingled with agitation and restlessness. Gooseflesh prickled her arms again. She caught Will rubbing the sleeve of his shirt against his skin, chilled and miserable.

‘At least get under the covers,’ She said, ‘or your sickness will return.’ Charity shuffled painfully until he could get the blankets to his chest but left them level with his hips.

‘Will, you will freeze.’

‘I don’t want to stain them, the innkeeper may have questions if he finds the sheets bloodied. He assumes your wedding night has already passed. Now go to sleep.’

The reference to her wedding night resulted in another flood of images. Elsie pictured Will peeling her from her crisp white underthings with torturous patience and slow care. Kissing her neck as he proceeded to the ties of her corset. Moaning softly against the shell of her ear as he pressed his hard length against the curve of her backside.

‘I’m not sure I can,’ Elsie murmured around her bitten lip. ‘Sleep, I mean.’

‘Try, for me.’

‘What if it isn’t just the amulets? I mean I don’t hear them now, do you?’

‘ _Elsie_.’

‘But they are dormant as dormice! Look! They do not shine or burn, there are no glowing footsteps or marks of magic in the room, everything is perfectly normal and yet…’

‘Stop, Elsie, stop and go to sleep.’

‘I.. feel the same as before…’ she blurted. ‘Well not quite the same. I feel I have more clarity whereas earlier it was like a dream at the behest of something old and powerful … but the feelings, the need, the _urge_ of it all that feels the same…’

‘Enchantment,’ Will said.

‘What?’

‘It felt like an enchantment. Before. The world narrowed and there was only you and I and that Thing between us, that need. It’s magic, Elsie. I was enchanted… with you… by you… by the amulet, by whatever was doing the enchanting. It had a sense of unreality and of inevitability and a voice of its own. I was helpless but to follow its commands. I practically had to tear myself from your presence, I can’t tell you what I had to do to, to get myself under control.’

He looked away, cheeks flushed even in the dark. Elsie tried to catch his eye.

‘What did you do?’ she asked.

‘Never mind. A gentleman does not discuss these things.’

There was an awkward silence during which Will ground his teeth.

‘So it was magic then?’ Elsie said eventually. ‘Just that?’

He hesitated slightly. ‘Yes?’

‘And now? With no outward sign of that magic? Will, I am not the only one of us laying here in distress am I? You feel the same. We might not feel quite as _possessed_ as earlier but it’s still there!’

She heard him swallow, detected a shake in his breath.

‘It is not entirely resolved,’ he admitted. ‘Perhaps the amulets triggered something or…’

‘Perhaps they merely highlighted something which was already there?’ she suggested.

Cautiously Elsie slipped her fingers under the hand that rested on his injured abdomen. He made a moan of complaint.

‘Sorry…’ she said starting to withdraw.

‘No… it just… I’m a little tender.’

Elsie pressed her hand gently to his skin which came away damp. The sweated evidence of his lingering sickness briefly chased her desire from her mind.

‘I worry this wound will never heal,’ she said. ‘Even with my best efforts it seems toxic again. Are you sure there was not more to this sword than three blades? Was there poison? Worse?’

‘An ancient curse?’ Will chuckled. ‘Knowing my fortune, quite possibly. A wound inflicted by magic cannot heal by skill or medicine alone…’ he trailed off and coughed lightly. ‘Maybe it’s in my blood now, some Old Egyptian spell. Since it happened everything seems to ache. I never seem to get any proper rest these days either, just fitful naps. It’s really rather wearing. Frustrating even. I could do so much more about this situation if I was just _well._ You see, you haven’t seen me at my best, dear girl. I know five separate forms of martial art. At my best I could have bested those men with…’

Elsie stopped her exploration of the bandages she was attempting to tidy and interrupted his flow.

‘A wound caused by magic?’

‘Hmm? Wouldn’t you rather hear about the stick fighting?’ he looked sideways at her hopefully.

‘Later. You were talking about the wound being caused by magic, but you said it was a Curse?’

‘That’s all a curse is. Dark magic.’

‘And the opposite of dark magic is…’ she looked at him meaningfully.

‘What?’ he said blankly.

‘Captain Charity, remember what I am, or at least what you said I could be,’ she said, ‘And what this represents,’ she touched the Red Sun.

The Red Moon began to glow softly at Charity’s throat and she smiled, suddenly sure her theory would work, though quite uncertain as to how she had commanded it.

‘Oh Lord not again,’ he said. ‘It’s woken up, now nobody will get any sleep. Can’t we turn it off again somehow..?’

‘Be quiet and let it work.’

‘Work?’

‘I just have a feeling these amulets are trying to communicate…’

‘With us to make us do… certain things,’ Will hedged.

‘With each other,’ Elsie said. ‘Now stop protesting for one minute and see what they do. Just lie there still…. And look at me.’

‘Oh,’ Will said, the golden glow moving up from the Red Moon, over his face and extending over his chest, ‘That’s…’ he closed his eyes. ‘Pleasant,’ he finished weakly. Elsie cocked her head to one side, rested on her elbows and gently placed her hand back on his stomach, directly over the wound. The glow gathered quickly at her palm, vacating the rest of his body. Will looked down.

‘Do you feel that?’ she asked, focusing on her hand.

‘Good Lord…’ he sounded breathless.

‘Healers you said, you said the women in my family are healers. Perhaps it is more than a knowledge of potions and poultices, perhaps when it really matters, we do this…’

The light intensified and she heard his breath catch in his throat. He moaned.

‘Elsie, perhaps you ought not to…’

‘Shh,’ she sat up a little and leaned over him, focusing on the connection between them, feeling the heat of magic build within her, and at the same time the tremble of desire moving through her limbs and his. Ancient Magic yes. Protector and Protected. But there was something even older binding them too and it had another name. The Amulets merely cast their light upon its presence.

‘I’m not claiming to understand this fully, Will,’ Elsie said, ‘But I’m fairly certain this magic is the antidote to whatever cursed that wound. It’s something good and pure and destined. Doesn’t it feel right? Doesn’t all of it feel right?’ She shifted slightly until she could straddle his pelvis, keeping her hand on the wound, guiding light and magic through her fingertips into the muscle and bone beneath her. She felt him harden through his trousers, felt the rush of stifling heat again on her skin and pulled her chemise free from her legs with her spare hand. Her thighs felt sticky against him.

‘Elsie, we really… _oh_ …’ there was a surge of power and Will gasped, his head tipping into the pillow and the light shimmering all around him like a halo. He moaned, an entirely different pitch, no complaint or pain left in his tone. ‘God above that… feels…. _Oh_ ,’ His hand reached for his bandages suddenly frantic. ‘Tight…stifling… ah… help me take this off!‘

Quickly Elsie pulled the linens back, stripped the shirt from his shoulders and unclasped his trousers. Charity lay back gasping, eyes closed and she stared at down his stomach, her thighs clamped around his hips. She passed a hand over his skin, an inch from touching, and something shimmering fell across him like stardust. She sat back again, a smile forming on her lips.

‘What is it?’ he asked, one arm slung over his perspiring face.

‘Not even a scar,’ she whispered. ‘Look.’

Will propped himself on one elbow and stared, before letting one hand wander over his belly curiously, over the smooth and flawless skin which covered his torso. ‘No scars at all,’ he commented in wonder. ‘No marks of any kind.’ He laughed and looked up at her in wonder, ‘I had quite the collection, before, a veritable treasure map,’ he said and shook his head.

‘X marks the spot?’ she teased and poked him. He wriggled, ticklish, supressing a giggle.

‘That is remarkable,’ he said restraining the guilty hand at her wrist. ‘ _You’re_ remarkable, Elsie. I feel, quite, quite blessed… truly… what have I done to merit such kindness? No one has _ever_ … well not since your mother… I…’

He looked briefly at the mattress and his face flickered in sorrow. ‘I have been invisible so long. For all my daring deeds and notoriety, I have none the less been hidden. Transient. Disguised. I’ve always had to manage on my own, you see. That is the nature of it all, my job, of who I am. Managing alone until one day I would just vanish and no-one would even remember…’

Elsie cupped his face with one hand and brought him back to her.

‘I have never felt more seen,’ he said, ‘Thank you, Elsie.’

The light from the amulets had settled to a pale glow about them both and it all but danced in his bright and tearful eyes of blue and green, sometimes amber, flecked with gold. The pupils wide, reflected the Red Sun. Will Charity smiled quickly and often but this was the first time Elsie could recall that he had smiled so fully, so completely, so openly with all his heart. He looked more alive than she had ever witnessed, and more handsome. The beauty of it touched her with its warmth, and she felt something within her shift, click, fully into place.

_I think I love him._

Not a command. Not the voice of magic, or the amulet, or an ancient prophesy. This voice was her own. The light from the Moon and Sun faded slowly, and with it the image in his pupils faded too, the amulet replaced with a portrait of herself, sharp defined as any sculptor’s cameo. She looked within Will Charity and saw a place for her inside his soul.

‘Elsie….’

‘I want you to kiss me,’ she said.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter had mixed feedback and caused all chaos to be let loose in my not very confident Author's Mind, and I nearly deleted the whole story as a result. So here is the warning again: It is Sex. The last 2 chapters have built up to sex and this is the sex. The whole chapter. Its explicit. I was happy when I wrote it, I'm leaving it in and I'm going to write the story as I conceived it while trying not to feel like I messed up.
> 
> People felt the Sex was out of character for Elsie and Will, I feel it's justified as part of the overall story. You're just going to have to trust me on that as the writer, or chose not to read it if it just doesn't feel right for you. I don't do this for a living, I just want a quiet life, this is free fiction, if people like it, great, if people don't … I just don't want to feel like I've messed up my own fic or let down the reader or the character development or that the plot is now void because the Sex happened etc. 
> 
> If you don't like reading detailed smut that's absolutely fine, skip it or whatever you are comfortable with but I've stated in tags that smut is part of this fic, its fan fic, its M rated, its supposed to be a bit of fun, smut will happen periodically now that it has started in this chapter. I'm not here to string it out for 100k words like I normally do before anyone so much as holds someone's hand (believe me I've done it lol). I'm not going to get too deep into character motivations or inner turmoil, I just want a nice angst free fic where the motivation is that Will Charity is a good looking hero and Elsie fancies the pants off him.
> 
> So be wary all those who enter here, for here be explicit sex.

In those, the last hours of the night, as the light turned from the grey of dawn to the saffron-gold of an early mid-autumn morning, Elsie was to be as transformed as the colours in the sky beyond their borrowed window. In the gloom she had found Will Charity’s lips by the sparkle of moisture left by an anxious tongue and pressed them to her own with deep insistent rhythm until he had at last taken command.

Will tipped her down upon the mattress with one hand secured at the small of her back, his fingers quick to insert themselves between the taut ribbons of her corset. She had worn the thing throughout their journey, with no maid to help her loosen off its ties and now she propped herself upon her elbows, angled up her body against his in the curve of a bow, and begged with breathless whispers at his ear to free her.

Charity’s mouth travelled to her neck with open kisses, the soft press of damp lips at her pulse point, the smooth flick of his tongue along her clavicle before he blew warm breath to cool the skin and tickle her with gooseflesh. He knelt, taking his weight and hers upon strong thighs and holding her suspended, like a fallen angel, quickly pulled upon the strings. His fingers latched between the eyelets, tugged the garment loose.

Elsie took a deep and luxurious breath as her chemise fell freely about her body. Though she was used to the whale bone and the stiff cotton it had held her so restricted for so long without a break, that she had failed to realise the pain it caused until its edges came away and flesh protested, deep grooves reddened in about her waist, vertical upon her ribs. Automatically she rubbed across them with her fingers but was quickly chased away as Will caressed the outline of her breasts and curves through the light chemise.

As the sky began to lighten to a colourless glow, she saw his grey eyes look to her in question and in response Elsie hitched up the edges of the garment to indicate permission. Will pulled it from her in a long smooth movement until a sail of cotton passed her face and vanished into the shadows. The heavy covers of the bed pressed into her pale skin about her hips and buttocks, tickled and irritated and she wriggled impatiently before he appeared above her, his weight now on his arms as his body lay between her legs. As she looked up she saw the dark curl of a ringlet fall before his face and reached to tame it.

Will Charity’s smile was as bright as the moon in the twilight, the light and focus of her still dark world. She saw him shake off her hand and as the errant curl sprang free again, he blessed her with a playful wink. Elsie redoubled her effort, bringing both hands now to his hair and scrunching wayward soft and bouncing curls down into place, giggling as one by one he took her wrists and pinned her before him arms outstretched to either side. God, but in the dawn he was so beautiful, his features made her sigh.

‘Kiss me again,’ she said.

‘Oh, but I will, though the where… and how… and when will be entirely at my discretion,’ he replied.

He leaned forward and pressed his weight against her chest, the fabric of his trousers feeling smooth against her thighs, but the touch of his bare skin was softer yet. Elsie gasped at the contact and the heat, the texture of him as he slid across her. Will released her hands and kissed her neck again as his fingers traced the angles of her hips, the curve of her backside, the softest groove between her body and her thigh. She felt a rush of heat and longing pool at her centre and shifted slightly to her right so that his touch might land just so, but he chuckled in her ear and drew back his hand.

‘Will!’

‘Patience, my girl, the art of love is not one to be rushed,’ his breath tickled hotly and he suckled on her earlobe for a moment, scraping his teeth across the flesh before breathing over the shell. Elsie felt her hips jerk as if upon a string and gasped again as he angled his pelvis down hard into her own. She ground up desperately against his thigh.

‘Now, now, you’ll spoil my breeches.’

‘Will…’ she clutched at his shoulders, bare under her touch and well-muscled, dragged her nails up to his neck to catch amongst the curls there. Charity clicked his tongue at her impatience until she felt she might weep from need. ‘This isn’t fair!’ she tried.

He grinned and leaned back to look at her, the light in the room grown quite strong now. She could see the shadows gathering at the dip in his throat, the planes of his muscles. The dark hair thick on his chest. Elsie let her eyes wander lower to the trousers she had herself unclasped and the tantalising glimpse of tight and wiry curls beneath. She felt her tongue wet her lips and glanced up embarrassed to find him watching her with faint amusement. With something like aplomb, he unfastened another clasp on the breeches and twitched his eyebrows playfully.

Elsie laughed and felt immediately more at ease as he hopped sideways off the bed and confidently stripped himself free of any remaining garments, but the feeling quickly passed as she took in his naked form. Though she had tended his wound and been exposed to chest and torso the sudden expanse of perfect flesh knocked the wind quite from her. The long line of his back culminating in the smooth firm shape of his buttocks and hips. The slight curve to his belly disappearing upwards into a stout chest and below into a realm which to her was as a mystery. His cock stood hard and proud against his stomach, his balls full and heavy between thick and shapely thighs.

‘Lord…’ she said before her nerves cut her off and Will re-joined her, sliding easily onto the mattress beside her soft form and immediately scooping her into his arms. He lay upon his back and angled her upon him, one thigh between hers, one hand taking her fingers and walking them over his chest until her palm lay over his heart.

‘I am terribly aware,’ he said, ‘That unlike my previous… acquaintances… you are a lady of considerable virtue and that all of this,’ here he gestured not without a hint of pride at the length of his body, ‘Is rather new to you?’

‘I…’ Elsie wanted to protest that she was not a total naïve. That she had cared for sick men in the past and lived upon a farm. That Nature’s designs were well known to her and she was well aware that storks did not bring babies, having helped at least one woman in the village realise her ambition to be a mother with a particularly potent brew, but what good was knowledge or even magic in a situation such as this. She had not the skills to know how to touch or please him, or the knowledge of the intricacies of what to expect. Her confidence left her, and she blushed. Charity followed the heat of it as it spread from check to neck with the soothing trace of his finger. ‘I have heard that it can hurt,’ she said finally, quietly, feeling half of her twenty-six years.

‘I will be gentle,’ he said in a softer tone and she dared to look at him. The edges of his charming smile twitched to reveal something much more tender just below and his gaze was fond. ‘That is, if you are certain,’ he added.

‘Aren’t you?’

One eyebrow raised, ‘Oh quite,’ he said, ‘But I am, as we know, ever a man willing to take action… the command however must come from you. And if it should not, if you should waver in its issue, I shall not take offense, my dear, or treat you unkindly as another man with dented pride might. My ego is quite sturdy I can assure you.’ His hand moved to her head and twisted a blonde lock between its fingers before he pushed them through her hair. The sensation ran warmly over her scalp and Elsie moaned.

‘Was that a ‘yes?’ he hazarded, pulling her closer. ‘Yes, Will?’

Elsie smiled and nodded.

‘Then please, he said flirtatiously, ‘Continue and have your fill of me.’

She kissed his jaw, rough now with stubble, sucked upon the earring on his left side until he gasped, and the moved to his lips. Let his tongue slip within her mouth and find her own. Crushed her body into his with driving flares of need, touched his shoulders, stomach, chest, the velvet of his nipples turning hard at her caress. She heard him groan deep in his throat, felt a dampness at her naval as he thrust upwards, a streak of moisture following his member in its wake. As she mouthed his throat he tipped back his head and cursed, his voice deep, resonant through her skin, and felt with his hands for the shapes of her breasts, cupping and fondling, guiding her upwards until he could sit her back and press his face against her.

He tugged slightly on one nipple with his teeth then laved the flesh, a growing passion in his movements rendering them less smooth. Elsie could feel his breath coming fast now, feel the tension in his fingers as he gripped her waist, the slow grind of his hips under hers falling in and out of synchronicity. He grabbed at her buttocks and began to pull her onto him more steadily, until she caught the rhythm and worked her own pace.

Something was building in both of them, but she sensed he was ahead and it was a pleasing sight, his eyes dark and skin flushed, the increasingly erratic movements in his body betraying his need, but as soon as he appeared to climb the peak he rolled her, trailed his tongue down the line of her belly, sucked a deep kiss on her hip bone and without warning nosed against the hair between her legs. Elsie gasped, a sharp pang of desire shocking her while at the same moment a sense of shame rendered her unsure.

‘Will? I… I’m not… I don’t know if you ought to?’

He looked up under his brows, dropped a soft kiss where the hair of her privates met her belly. The sensation tickled and lit a flame within. Elsie felt her cheeks flush.

‘Let me try,’ he coaxed, ‘If you don’t enjoy the feeling I will stop, I promise, but let me… trust me, Elsie, it is the purest form of joy.’

She nodded, closed her eyes and bit her lip, but Lord the feeling then as his hot breath hit her hidden parts, his tongue slipped wetly over a throbbing aching spot. She reared half off the bed and cried, her hands reaching for his hair and knotting her fingers in his curls. Will hummed happily against her and she twitched and thrust under his touch, an ache growing within, desperate for him to fill. He had struck a rhythm and with its insistence her thighs began to shake, the need threatening to transform into relief at any moment but then she pushed him back.

‘Come here,’ she managed, and he seemed to recognise something in her that would broker no argument, resigned his post and did as she ordered.

Will covered her mouth with his own again and this time the kiss was forceful, wet and sloppy. He nipped at her lower tip and she realised it must be swollen, even bruised by the force generated between them. She straddled him again, switching in and out of place with him, a tussle for stimulus. She could feel herself slick where her body melded closest to him down below, the firm shape of his cock dipping just within her with each movement. She could feel that ache within of desperation that had started with the press of his tongue. Now it demanded more, all, and she tried to guide him with her hips and a slow and pleading groan.

He caught her plea and turned her suddenly, flipping her back against the covers and with his hands parting her legs easily, his palms under her knees. He leant above her and from the window the sun streamed through the curtains’ cracks, golden all about him like a halo, blinding from the mirrors on the dresser until the grey of his eyes at dawn turned blue and green and sparkled. His cheeks were pink, his lips puffy and bright, a sheen of dew like sweat across his brow and chest. The Red Moon lay dormant, silent at his neck, his passion driven by another kind of spell. Elsie dared to look down at the deep colour of his member, at the twitch of its need.

She found his hand and linked it with her own.

‘Please,’ she coaxed. He leaned down closer and she felt him nudge against a secret tender place. Elsie wriggled until the weight of him pressed and pushed there, ready. Will kissed her softly, let the point of his nose caress her own, looked straight into her eyes.

‘You’re certain?’

‘Yes.’

‘There are other ways for both of us to reach our peak, I need not… I need not take your virginity, Elsie.’

‘Will! Please, please do it,’ the force of her protest must have shifted her position for he jerked against her wantonly and his eyes fluttered closed. A heartbeat later she felt him fumble down between them and then directly, firmly, fill her.

‘Oh!’ Elsie’s eyes flew wide and she clutched at Will’s shoulders hard. It burned, but only for a moment, before the touch of his fingers somewhere close to where he joined her took her mind quite far away from any mild discomfort she might feel. His lips found hers again briefly before he seemed to tuck himself in at her neck and whisper as he found his way about her body.

‘Like so or…’ he adjusted the pattern of his touch, ‘Like _so_.’ A surge of pleasure rushed through her and she gasped. ‘Ah,’ she could hear the smile in his breathless voice, ‘And… perhaps a little more quickly…. A little more pressure.’ Elsie’s hips bucked, she felt herself tighten about him. Will groaned. ‘Oh, splendid, that seems to do the trick,’ he commented.

He kept up his ministrations as he moved, his hips sliding back and forth, the heady pressure of his cock deep within striking somewhere hidden. Elsie felt her grip on him tighten, the most over whelming urge to hurry him along. She frowned, her eyes tight closed and a whine forming in her throat.

Will nudged her cheek with his nose, his panting breath sweet and close, ‘You are my guide, Elsie, do feel free to lead, hmm, don’t be shy.’

‘I… I can’t…. It’s… It’s too much…’ she managed.

Charity drew back and stopped himself immediately still within her, and the sudden interruption had her mewling. ‘Will! Please!’

‘Too much, you said… ah’ his concern transformed into a cocksure smile, ‘Oh I see, not too much as in ‘Please stop!,’ too much as in ‘please _more_ Captain Charity, ravish me immediately and thoroughly!’’ He laughed, self-assured and just on the wrong side of annoying her.

‘For God’s sake will you just…’

‘Certainly,’ he grinned.

Will pushed forward and Elsie’s hips clamped about him. He moved to reach between them again when she batted his hand away and clutched at his behind. ‘Harder!’ she ground out. ‘I don’t need your hand I need,’ he pushed into her again, ‘Oh! That _, harder_!’

‘Oh, ho ho! Well if you insist, my dear.’ And he shifted her subtly until the spot within her he had hit before so steadily now seemed to clasp and throb and tear with pleasure at every thrust. Will rolled his hips and something tight and sharp and needy threatened to burst within her.

‘Oh… Oh my… God!’ she panted suddenly beyond desperation and utterly driven by the sensation. In her mind a fearful mantra began to beat out a pace.

_Please don’t let him stop, don’t stop, don’t stop._

But above her sudden Will’s own breathing altered, his relaxed enthusiasm changing now to a frown as he panted open mouthed and closed eyed. A bead of sweat moved slowly down his temple, the wayward curl she had tried to tame now clung damply, darkly to his brow. She kissed and sucked upon his top lip, tasting salt and nipping at the skin, and Will for all his experience and gentlemanly care, groaned hard before his voice transformed to higher, pitchier, cries and supplications.

He lurched forward and the whole bed shuddered.

‘Elsie I… Oh... Christ… I… I’m going to… I…’ he covered her mouth quickly with his own, swallowing a moan, and thrust his hand between them, his fingers working her quickly in the mingled slickness of their bodies. Elsie saw a flare of white light behind her eyes and her body spasmed hard, forcing her up into his arms even as her head tipped back and she cried out. Wave after wave of pleasure hit her as she ground down onto the hardness of his cock and then suddenly he tore away with a shout, let go her body and grabbed himself hard. A hot spray of liquid splattered thickly across her hip and Will fell forward onto one arm even as he pumped the last few drops from himself.

He stayed like that for a long moment, his breath heaving but settling slowly.

‘Sorry about that,’ he said, eyes still closed. She watched a drop of sweat run the length of his precious nose and fall onto her breast. ‘Didn’t want to risk the pitter patter of tiny Charities,’ he opened one eye and peered at her cheekily, ‘Not that I don’t think they would be delightful of course, I can just imagine the little buggers, absolute charmers but… not the right time for all that hmm?’

Elsie blinked at him in bemusement.

‘I say are you all right?’ he asked with a slight hint of concern beneath his customary bravado. She smirked and nodded. ‘Course you are,’ he said flopping sideways. ‘Wouldn’t expect anything less now I’m a all healed up and what have you.’

‘You’re in good form,’ Elsie confirmed from her dazed and slightly sticky position. ‘I…. I don’t quite know what to say if I am honest. It was… incredible.’

‘Jolly Good. You’re very lucky. Just remember that most young ladies are not so fortunate as to get the William Charity Experience first time around,’ he said closing his eyes and looking utterly satisfied with himself. ‘I will have spoiled you utterly for your future husband. Never tell him, whoever he turns out to be. He shan’t ever live up to the Charity reputation.’

He patted her hand and then held it gently as he fell into a doze.

Elsie turned her head to side and watched his breathing slow, the glisten of sweat on his skin drying off in the morning sun. He spoke in jest she knew, no husband loitered on her horizon, but his words provoked a curiosity in her all the same. The magnitude of their morning gave her pause. She tried to memorise his profile, the feel of his skin where he still held her hand, the scent of him on her body. And for a tiny moment she experimented and tried to see another man by her side. The future husband of whom he spoke, a worthy gent who no doubt knew nothing of magic or curses or ancient amulets, and plenty about politics or business, but try as she did, she could not picture him at all.

William Charity was all she could see of the future.


	12. Chapter 12

During her time upon the Estate, Elsie had often woken late of a morning, stretched languidly across the expanse of her four poster and without much motivation at all to move before lunch. She was left undisturbed by staff or family as her temper upon waking was not at its most agreeable and they had learned from their mistakes. She was a creature of habit and like a cat would often bask atop the covers until the sun had moved from her window, leaving her warm and pink and supple and more ready to face the day than had she been dragged at dawn from between the sheets by a grumbling Mrs Pence. In her state of half dream this morning Elsie could feel the autumn sun warming her skin, but when stretched out her arms, she was greeted by an unexpected and exceedingly merry ‘Hello ma’am,’ which had her grabbing at the coverlets and sitting very straight.

‘H..hello?’ she managed, eying the stranger. There was absolutely no sign of Will. Elsie scanned the room for his things, but nothing, not his pipe, clothes or weaponry remained. Her heart constricted with fear and another emotion she did not like to name.

In the meantime the maid smiled from her place by the open window, chamberpot in one hand and cloth in the other. She edged the former to the floor without breaking eye contact and then quickly battened the glass shut again. Grinning guiltily and with several missing teeth, she slid the now suspiciously empty pot under the bed with a toe. Then she curtseyed awkwardly. It was all a bit unnecessary.

‘Lovely morning, ma’am,’ she said, ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you, just that the chores were waiting, I’m normally done much earlier.’

‘What time is it?’ Elsie asked, ignoring the blindingly obvious evidence that the maid had tossed the contents of the pot over the courtyard below instead of taking it all the way to the privy. Elsie had more pressing matters to worry about and could tell the maid off later; for now she drew the covers further to her chin with the sudden humiliating knowledge that she was completely nude beneath them and that William Charity had just _left her like that_ in a strange inn after he had… well after he had…. _Damn_ him!

Elsie cast her eyes about for her clothes and failed to spot them.

‘Oh after eleven, ma’am, gentleman said to let you sleep, said you’d had a restless night,’ the maid’s eyes sparkled and her face creased knowledgeably in a tic that might have been a conspiratorial wink between women but looked a good deal more like a grimace or a late entry to the local gurning competition at the fayre.

‘Did he indeed?’ Elsie growled.

‘Oh yes ma’am, ‘e were quite concerned for you after all that travelling an’ exercise yesterday.’

‘And where is he now if he is so concerned for my well-being?’

‘Had to pop out ma’am, things to attend to, ‘e said. Been gone since breakfast on errands. I can imagine an important gent like ‘im has all sorts to attend to. Must be everso hard being his new wife ma’am, what with him dashing about with so much to occupy ‘im.’

Elsie watched the woman rattled on before her with increasing unease. Where in hell were her clothes? Even her corset appeared to be missing. It had to be here somewhere. She tried to recall exactly what had happened to the chemise but the last she had seen was of Charity casting it dramatically to one side before returning his mouth to her neck, and then strangely enough she had lost track of it. Perhaps it was not here at all. Why would Will take her underthings? Why indeed unless he meant to stop her following him, the Will Charity equivalent of putting sleeping tonic in her tea. Was that what this was about? Had he been more angry than he let on? Had he intended to punish her even though she had apologised? Or worse had he simply been toying with her all along just to get his wicked way and… Lord was that maid still talking? Elsie could not think for the noise and it was difficult enough to wade through the distorted memories of glowing amulets, magical healing and Will Charity’s skilled embrace without that racket in the background.

‘… but I could tell ‘e was a thoughtful man, ma’am,’ the maid prattled, ‘letting you gather yourself that way first thing and ‘e were kind to me an’ all, gave me sixpence to leave this room ‘til last, but…’

She caught Elsie’s glower, ‘But I really should be pressing on now, ma’am, shouldn’t I, ma’am will there be anything else ma’am? Anything at all?’

‘My things, girl, where are they? Have they been taken for the laundry?’

The maid looked about, ‘I don’t see ‘em ma’am.’

‘That’s the problem, nor do I… where might they be?’

‘Could you have lost ‘em ma’am, if you were paying no mind to ‘em last night perhaps?’ the maid tried for innocence, but her expression came across as a smirk and Elsie decided that she hated her. If she was not trapped under the covers naked, she would have ushered her directly from the room at once.

Instead the door burst open and in sailed Will Charity dressed in a burgundy velvet frock coat and black top hat, and a pair of extremely tailored cream trousers. He had several large fabric items draped over his left arm and a hatter’s box dangling from his right hand. He dropped it on the bed and Elsie hastily retracted her feet.

‘Darling!’ Will announced, bending over her and pulling her in tight for a well-aimed kiss upon the lips, ‘You are awake, how are you? Hmm? Quite recovered?’

‘I’m _fine_ , Will where…’

‘And little Becky,’ Will said indulgently to the maid and extended his now free arm benevolently, ‘Are you all done, my dear, would you excuse my wife and I, I simply must show her these splendid sartorial purchases.’

Becky looked at him blankly.

‘Clothes, dear, clothes,’ he explained.

‘Oh! Will your wife be needing any assistance, sir?’ Becky said looking at him with huge and cow like eyes of wonder, ‘A lady’s things can be tricky to do up alone.’

‘Ah… you are kind, and I can understand your enthusiasm to get your hands on these pretty items,’ Elsie saw him glance down at the maid’s dirty fingernails with well disguised horror, ‘but you see my wife is not alone, she has me, and I might not have the experience of a lady’s maid but I can ensure you I am terribly enthusiastic, keen to learn and very, _very_ willing.’

He winked. Becky giggled and blushed, apparently as susceptible to his charms as every other woman with whom Will Charity had ever conversed. Elsie was filled with an irrational desire to strike the girl and dislodge a further one or two of her spartan teeth. Perhaps such a fate had befallen Becky before now at the hands of disgruntled wives and their horribly inappropriate and flirtatious cads of husbands. Elsie scowled at Will who feigned complete disregard for the expression, so she drew her knees up to her chest and scowled at the maid instead, who finally, gods be praised, took the hint and left.

Will carefully laid the garment bags out on the covers and grinned down at her all dimples and white teeth and sparkling eyes.

‘Where have you been?’ Elsie hissed refusing to acknowledge how soft the collar of his coat looked against his neck or how very tight those slim legged breeches were in just the right places.

‘Where does it look like?’ he said happily, ‘Can a man not shop for his wife? Yesterday’s fashions were from an emergency stockpile of mine but these… these are freshly tailored!’

‘They cannot be freshly tailored Will, I was not there at the fitting, because someone did not wake or consult me.’

‘No indeed, a _very_ considerate gentleman let you sleep after a hard night and took your things there to be measured against what was available, I couldn’t let my wife be seen in something entirely off the peg, however common that is these days…’ He opened one of the bags and she caught a glimpse of a beautiful autumnal riding cloak in a velvet which matched his own and which, she knew, would make her lips look cherry red against her pale skin and golden hair. Damn him and his taste. She wanted to hate it so badly but it was exactly the kind of luxurious and feminine item she dreamed of.

‘I dropped them in this morning so you might have some things altered quickly while I went about my other business,’ Will was saying.

‘What other business? I thought _I_ was your business!’ she said a little more shrilly than she had intended. ‘Will where have you been and what exactly have you been doing? Anything could have happened!’

‘You were asleep,’ he said plopping down beside her on the bed and undoing the bottom button on his new waistcoat. The mattress creaked. The sound conjured a vivid image of Will driving into her wildly some few hours beforehand and she felt a frisson of arousal. Charity walked his fingers down her covered thigh to rest at her hip and leaned in to whisper in her ear. ‘You were quite exhausted, poor thing.’ Elsie huffed and looked skyward, ‘Didn’t even stir when I got up,’ he went on, ‘Looked quite adorable snoozing away amongst all those frilly pillows, like a little angel.’ His eyes crinkled as he cast his gaze over her sleep ruffled hair and she suddenly was consumed with the urged to tug and pat it into place. He chuckled at her self-consciousness.

‘Shut up!’ she protested.

‘Oh, don’t be like that, I bought you a dress!’ Will said sitting back again merrily. ‘Girls like dresses. At least they did last time I checked. I’m a little out of practice with all this…’ he mused and for a moment looked oddly vulnerable. Elsie did not believe a word of it.

‘You should have woken me. I had no idea where you were or… or if you would come back… or if you’d be killed or magically vanished by some strange and shining light…’

Will fell into a fit of giggles by her side. He was particularly irksome when he giggled. It did not befit his heroic demeanour at all and made him rather sweet and lovable.

‘Stop it!’ she said. ‘How do you expect me to react? You left me here on my own after… after _everything_!’ Elsie said running desperate fingers through her hair to tame it.

‘Everything?’ he eyed her with a twinkle.

‘Yes! The… the men and the attacks and… and the whole business with… whoever is after the amulet…’ she finished aware she was about to give herself away and look rather weak if she confessed her actual fears upon waking.

‘Oh _that_ ,’ Charity said, ‘Well I wouldn’t worry I don’t think anyone has clocked us being here yet and besides if they had I’m sure the old Red Moon would have called me back at a moment’s notice. I was only down the street.’

‘That’s not the point! I didn’t know where you were, or what had happened or if you… if you…’

‘If I?’

‘You left me here with no _clothes_!’ Elsie finished and looked away. She absolutely would not reveal her original fear that he had walked out after their tryst because she had somehow been a disappointment or worse a simple conquest and he had better things to be doing in town running errands or whatever the bloody maid had claimed.

Elsie felt Will’s hand cover her own and squeeze.

‘We needed some things,’ he said. Elsie sniffed and did not return his gaze. ‘Some clothes befitting our station as a well to do couple,’ he went on, ‘A horse to replace the one I allegedly shot yesterday after our ‘riding accident,’ as tiny and delicate as you are poor Aro can’t lug us both everywhere,’ Elsie looked round at him, ‘And this,’ he pulled a little box out of his pocket and popped it on the sheet beside her.

‘What’s that?’ she asked.

‘Well Elsie dear, I don’t think anyone has noticed quite yet because of our late arrival at this Inn, but we will be moving on shortly and I daresay the owners of other establishments will be curious as to why a newly wed woman is not wearing a ring?’

Elsie blinked.

‘A wedding ring,’ he spelled out, ‘ _Mrs_ Masters. Or Mrs Trent, or Mrs Boldwood, or whatever you will be by the time we get up to Scotland. But you need one. Now put it on.’

She flipped open the jeweller’s box to find a gold band within decorated with emeralds.

‘A simple band would do,’ she said somewhat ungratefully.

‘A simple band would _not_ do,’ Will argued proudly, ‘As the town jeweller thinks we are already married and have no need of a plain ring. This is considerably more suitable. It’s an eternity band.’

‘Why emerald?’

He hesitated, glanced away. ‘They match the colour of your eyes,’ he admitted. Elsie raised her eyebrow at him. ‘I thought it was nice,’ he added somewhat defensively. ‘Anyway I had to tell him you were with child and your fingers had swollen and that was his suggestion.’

Elsie looked horrified, ‘I do not have chubby fingers! How dare you tell that man that I…’

‘That’s what you are concerned about?’ Will said, ‘The reputation of your fingers? Young lady it may have escaped your attention, but I have bedded you publicly and rather loudly and energetically in an inn, unwed, _unbetrothed_ , while lying about the nature of our relationship to anyone who would listen and dissembling about our true identifies and a dead pony. There is rather a lot resting on this facade so if you wouldn’t mind putting the damn thing on and corroborating my story!’

‘Fine. But my fingers are not fat,’ she ungraciously put the ring on. ‘Are they?’ she checked.

‘No. And I sincerely hope you are not with child either after all that.’ He leaned against the bedstead and stared at the canopy.

She flexed her hand. ‘I suppose you have a plan then?’ she said admiring the set of the jewels. There were tiny diamonds between the green stones and it was a remarkably good fit for a guess.

‘Of course.’

‘And?’ she prompted.

Will stood and fumbled in his pocket for his pipe while Elsie pulled her new clothes from the bags

‘We keep heading North on horseback in our current disguise, but once we hit Northumberland we will have to be more careful. If whoever is hunting us knows about the legend they will expect us to be taking a route into Scotland and have likely posted some sort of guard at the border. Luckily for us it’s a route I’ve travelled a good many times and I have, as always, left a certain number of supplies along the way.’

‘Supplies?’ Elsie asked extracting her corset from the bundle and a fresh chemise. ‘What kind of supplies? Is this another grubby cottage you’ve stocked with wine?’

‘You’ll see when we get there, but for now you should enjoy the finery while you can. The next phase will not be quite as glamorous.’

Elsie gave him a withering look. ‘What are you having us do? Pose as farm hands? Field workers?’

‘No, no, no, nothing so mundane, my girl.’

‘Wouldn’t mundane be better for a disguise, to try and blend in with the ordinary people?’

‘Well I’m sure we would blend in as you put it but where’s the fun in that? No, you’ll like it. We won’t be able to luxuriate in roadside Inns but the whole premise is rather jolly. A proper adventure.’ He grinned boyishly and looked positively impish with glee. It almost melted her but then she remembered lying in cold wet ditches and sharing a breakfast table with a horse and became suspicious again.

‘Will, what are you having us…’

‘It’s a secret,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to spoil the surprise, and walls have ears after all. Now get dressed.’

Elsie checked the walls for ears and saw none but something about his tone told her she would glean no more from him. ‘Fine,’ she sighed and scooted to the edge of the bed, swinging her legs out the side. The covers rucked about her hips and fell away from her breasts. Instinctively she grabbed a handful of the sheets and brought them up again, catching Will’s wandering eye as she did so. His pupils grew dark and Elsie felt a tingle of anticipation run over her skin. She wet her lip and he followed the trace of her tongue with his gaze until his own mouth opened hungrily, but after a moment he politely turned his head and moved to the window, fixing his sights somewhere across the street.

Elsie studied his back and thought of calling him to her, the tension between them seeming to return in spades despite the relief from their encounter the night before, but with that ache, in the daylight and without the shine of the amulets’ magic, she recognised another more complicated cluster of feelings to do with William Charity that left her confused and vulnerable.

He was a man she had known barely a week, but to whom she had given herself freely. A man whose conflict between duty and desire had almost prevented their union entirely but who had crumbled helpless to resist at her request, and at her touch, and at the first suggestion that she might love him. A man whose cocky facade irritated her greatly but who made her laugh, who gave her pleasure freely and who, when he had not been present at her side that morning, had left her close to bereft at the idea that he might leave her.

A man who wanted to dress her in pretty things and call her his wife, took delight in her company, respected her mind and viewed her body with longing, but who at the closure of their intimacy at dawn, had all but told her that he could not consider himself to be her husband at all. That that place was left open for another, better, more conventional man, and that one day, perhaps when this adventure was over, Will would vanish back into the ether from whence he came to be forgotten. She did not know who would hurt the most if he did, him or her, but she suspected he would never tell her the truth of his feelings, for what he felt was her own good.

He was humming some jaunty song that seemed to fit the levity of his expression but did not quite match his eyes. The notes were a distraction from the woman in the bed behind him and all that might be called temptation, deviation from his Protector’s path. And yet she would not refuse him should he come to her, no disaster had befallen the pair since their lovemaking, no Curse? So why now did he resist, face turned from her bare flesh to protect her dignity? It was a little late for him to be shy and yet he engaged in reverse seduction, courting her backwards when she was already his.

A skein of vanilla scented smoke drifted upwards from his spot by the window, blurred the edges of his silhouette and dimmed his features, and Elsie paused to wonder just how much of the Will Charity she knew was wishful thinking and illusion, on her behalf, or his.


	13. Chapter 13

Elsie had in all fairness expected that being on the run from unknown pursuers of magical antiquities would be a rather pressing and hectic affair, given her experience thus far, but this last day or so had been positively leisurely when compared with the outset. Previously she had been forced to run over muddy meadows at midnight, camp in dilapidated cottages, share her bread with a horse, and gallop to safety having been snatched breathlessly from the ground by an exceedingly handsome and capable hero. A capable hero whose arms were surprisingly strong and whose firm body and powerful thighs had later sent her into ecstasies while he masqueraded as her husband in a two-bit inn and expertly deflowered her at her spellbound insistence. But after _that_ it had all calmed down considerably and day to day existence was almost dull by comparison. Were they even be pursued at all? It seemed like a lifetime ago.

It was true that Elsie had been forced to stay in another two-bit inn, and then another, and ride for miles across Yorkshire in an autumnal haze thick with tiny harvest bugs and chaff, and sleep on a lumpy mattress, but as hardships went these were tolerable and rather mundane. Sleep she would, quite peaceably and only after a hearty meal with ale. They did not appear to have to travel at any pace, no obvious mercenaries tracked their steps, the landscape on their journey was rather pretty and the company was really rather good.

Better than good, actually. For when each day ended and she tucked herself into bed it was next to the distractingly masculine shape of William Charity, whose constant stream of charming conversation kept her entertained in daylight and whose presence made her feel quite safe at night. True to form there had been one or two entertaining little spats between the pair to break the monotony, and on Wednesday Elsie had kept up a silent treatment for the best part of the afternoon for reasons that now escaped her, until he had wormed his way deliciously back into her approval with a warm bag of roasted chestnuts purchased at a roadside stall. It was a game, and one she played willingly as a distraction from the thought that someone somewhere seemed to want her dead.

But one thing was missing. Since their first night at the Cock and Rabbit Inn, Charity had maintained an absolute refusal to repeat their lovemaking. It was not cruel about it and in public played the role of affectionate husband with tell-tale ease, but in private he would gently remove her eager hand from his with a soft kiss and lay it in her lap. It baffled her and hurt her in equal measure. He was firm in his decision but not unkind. It plagued her daytime thoughts and night-time dreams. Having been a maid before she gave herself so fully and willingly to him, Elsie was unsure what was expected of her. Perhaps she had done wrong. She wracked her memory for any mistake she could have made or any offense he might have taken, but her inexperience made such judgements difficult.

Will continued to avert his eyes should she undress and vacate the room within each inn when she washed or saw to her ablutions. In bed he wore his breeches and his shirt and though he did not insist on placing feet between them, or indeed a separating pillow filled with down, he did not embrace her either, leaving her feeling exposed and alone for want of the warmth of his body. Her heart and mind clamoured to be heard. She felt that she was his in every sense, so why now did he reject her? The harvest bugs and mattress lumps and weary travel she could cope with, but the distance between her and her Protector was increasingly disheartening. She wished the amulet would pipe up and encourage him again, or lend her courage, but both the Moon and Sun stayed silent. She tried so hard not to let her sentiment run away with her reason, but last night she had watched him drifting off with tears in her eyes, a shameful crying rejected girl, heartbroken by her erstwhile lover.

This afternoon she was determined to be more herself, but she was itchy and sticky and her thighs hurt from the ride and another altogether more irritating ache had been plaguing her all morning since Will discarded his frock coat in the late autumn sun and rolled up the full white sleeves of his shirt to revealed the definition of his forearms. He was even starting to tan and her ability to focus on his eyes when he spoke, and not the curve of his lip and white of his teeth was eluding her. Even if he did not love her, could he not appreciate her body in the way that she most certainly appreciated his? She refused to be unwanted totally, but she knew that that was not the issue.

In the light of day, there could be no more debate based on her own insecurities, because she knew he _felt_ it; his denial was an academic exercise, his desire was painted all over his face. The way his gaze lingered on her as they rode told her just as much as his instinct to turn to her in his sleep at night. Just as much as the knowledge that three mornings in a row she had woken to find him curled about her body, one arm about her waist and his hard prick against her backside, his hand upon the meat of her thigh, chemise rucked up in anticipation. Once, just that morning past she had even felt him grind in rhythm at her hip. His need was clear and becoming more so by the day. When Will Charity was asleep his body did not, could not lie, but he denied it _all_ the moment that he woke. Flustered and pink cheeked he had disentangled himself from her at dawn and left the room while Elsie rolled into the warmth of his vacated spot and breathed his fading scent. What more could she do to break his resolve around her, was it right to press upon a gentleman so?

Elsie rebelliously imagined pinning him to the mattress should he rut against her one more time. Truly she was running out of ladylike restraint. Well, ladylike was not conducive to adventure, surely he could appreciate that? Her heart spoke his own language and so did her flesh. A soft bite upon the lobe that sported that roguish earring might fell him… she ached to hear the timbre of his groan.

‘Elsie… Elsie he’s wandering again. _Elsie!_ ’

‘What? Sorry,’ she blushed hard, tried to snap herself out of her daydream.

‘The horse!’

She looked across at Will who had drawn Aro to a halt on the rustic little path _en route_ to Sherburn. There were another five miles to go and the creatures had grown lazy after lunch. She had not exactly been keen to move on either, spread upon a blanket underneath a willow by a stream watching Will chew straw as he checked his pistol. It had not needed checking, and nor had his ammunition, but it seemed he would do anything to avoid her eye, and yet he had chosen to bring the picnic in the first place.

The spot was as private and picturesque as any painting, a veritable romantic dream for her indulgence, feeding straight into the warmest of her feelings. Amongst the autumn colours and the soothing sounds of the sparkling water reflected in his eyes, Will looked painfully handsome. Her own hair glowed as golden as the willow at her back. As a pair they were downright enchanting, a fairy king and queen at one with nature, and still he would not meet her even halfway.

Elsie longed to lay his head down in her lap and stroke his wayward curls, but he kept himself occupied with food or drink or weaponry until it was time again to ride, boosting her into her side saddle with a perfunctory ease and retreating straight away. Two hours must have passed since and she still fancied she could feel his hands upon her waist.

She was staring at him, she realised. Had been for some time.

He gave her a meaningful stare back and then looked down. Elsie followed his gaze, found her horse had stuck his head through a hedge and was munching on some lengthy grass.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ she tugged the reins she had allowed to slip. ‘Get up here you brute!’ She heard Charity snort. ‘Zuse! Zuse! Get…. Up!’ she leaned back with all her strength and the grey’s head slowly lifted dragging brambles with it. He looked about and chewed, great sticky drops of spittle mixed with grass blades falling from his wide lips. Elsie pulled right and he ponderously joined Aro who appeared to look down his regal muzzle at him with disdain.

‘I thought you said he was dynamic,’ Elsie said, ‘Runs like the wind, you said, an extension of myself, responds in a flash to the slightest twitch upon the rein?’

‘I’m sure he does when the need is pressing,’ Will said shifting in his saddle and flexing his shoulders where they had stiffened from the day’s ride. ‘It’s just that the only pressing needs he feels right now is for some of that tasty looking meadow. And why not, we’ve miles to go, he has to keep his strength up. I say are those blackberries?’ he asked nodded at the tangle in Zuse’s bridle, ‘What a clever boy!’ He leaned forward and plucked one, rubbed the beast’s cheek affectionately.

Elsie glared at her horse for having the audacity to receive such a loving caress from Will when she herself felt so touch hungry. She listened to the grinding crunch of Zuse’s slow oblivious jaws.

‘He’s useless,’ she announced ‘I think you were sold a pup. The man couldn’t even spell his name, hardly the sign of a reputable dealer.’

‘Now, now, just because the chap hasn’t got his formal education,’

‘He wrote the receipt in pencil on the back of a beer mat,’ Elsie said.

‘It does not mean he is lacking in intellect!’

‘He plucked the name from the air, Will.’

‘Well it shows he had at least _heard_ of the Greek, the denizens of Mount Olympus!’

Will lifted one hand dramatically and gazed skywards with a rapt countenance. Elsie tried very hard not to roll her eyes. There was a side of Charity that ought to have taken up a life upon the stage. A liking for lyrical words and dramatic gesture, a quickness to his expression that was utterly engaging, a love of costume, prop and disguise. She could imagine the ladies of town swooning in their seats as he played Romeo, all naivety and passion and bountiful ringlets. He would also have been less likely to have been stabbed in the line of duty. She was frankly amazed, given his frequent and lengthy tales of daring deeds, that he had managed to remain uninjured for the three whole days just passed.

‘I think he called him Zuse by accident,’ she argued returning her thoughts to the horse.

‘Nonsense. He is a Godly steed. The letters just got switched about that’s all,’ he grinned at her. ‘Zeus… Zu-se… is almost the same, no?’

‘Regardless of his name, he’s stubborn, I want a new one,’ she said peevishly.

Will chortled and adopted an irksome tone of pacification.

‘Stubborn he may be, but he is very beautiful, and both are worthy traits which he shares with his mistress, now… if you’ll excuse me,’ he hopped off Aro with a ‘oomph’ sound and straightened his spine, ‘Back in a moment.’ Charity wandered towards a tree in the hedgerow while nonchalantly unbuckling his fly.

‘ _Must_ you do that?’ Elsie said.

‘Afraid so, my dear!’ he mercifully vanished behind the tree, ‘Zuse isn’t the only one with a pressing need.’ Elsie muttered something about it ‘being simple for menfolk, but what exactly was she supposed to do,’ and then sat back in the saddle to wait.

The air about her seemed to shimmer, thick and golden, the fields stretching out around her rich with harvest and late summer meadow flowers. The breeze was heavy and warm against her face. She felt her eyes closing. Beneath her Zuse shifted, took the weight off one of his back legs and dipped his head, tail flicking lazily against the harvest flies. Her mind drifted. To Will, of course, as it was wont to do of late, and to her memories of their intimacy and beyond that to an imagined future.

She dared not look too far ahead for fear of jinxing her luck. But another inn perhaps, another late supper by firelight, another night tucked close to him. Another opportunity. Perhaps if she were to take the lead, as she had the first time, he might surrender this pretence, be reassured she knew just what it was she wanted, be convinced by her desire. He might allow the burgeoning ache within to be expressed, released and received willingly. She imagined rolling in his sleeping arms come morning, pressing kisses to his drowsy lips, encouraging the movement of his hips. The autumn afternoon began to fade as her fantasy consumed her, and quickly with a dragging falling feeling, she lost track of time. Elsie’s eyes grew heavy.

And it was dark at first. And quiet. And cold, but the air she now breathed was still scented with the warmth of day. It was night but storm clouds blocked the moon and no stars shone, and on the cusp of the horizon a building loomed the likes of which she had never seen before.

At least not in life. She had seen them in texts and in the dailies. In sketches brought back by soldiers and explorers and adventurers like Will. She remembered them from childhood, from the news about the war. Exotic, filled with secrets and with treasure. Their silhouette uniquely recognisable, like the outline now before her. For rather than the straight walls ascending at right angles to the ground, the sides of this building slanted. The stone that made its walls was ancient, worn away by time, by hot sand on desert wind, and at the centre, a tiny gap that led into its heart, where long dead bodies slept.

Elsie was drawn to the glow of candlelight within. Moving like a ghost over rough ground, climbing without effort the slope of the pyramid, and once inside she drifted, wending her way by the torchlight on the walls. There were voices deep inside, an unfamiliar language, the sounds of an argument in hissing whispers, and beneath that the sound of pain. Elsie rounded a corner, saw a group of local men in consultation, shadows gathering about their eyes and cheeks in the tiny dark chamber.

And at the centre a man suspended in chains and bindings, the red uniform of the British army torn open, his shirt stained with blood, dust covered breeches, sand upon his skin. His head hung down, dark curls damp with sweat and his breathing coming in slow and shallow bursts. Half delirious with fever, moaning in agony, she could see by the marks on his body he had put up quite the fight.

She would expect no less of Captain William Charity.

A man stepped forward, a short club in his hand and prodded Will’s bare stomach roughly. She heard him moan, his eyelids flickering, but he was all but unconscious, confused and weak. The man stepped back and swung, hit him hard and full across the belly and Charity swung wildly on the chains, spinning from the point above his head where his wrists were bound. There was laughter.

‘Stop!’ Elsie cried reflexively. It was clear that no-one heard but Charity’s tormentor reached forward and stopped him spinning with a rough grasp of his shirt. He peered at his face.

‘Still no word?’ a man said, though Elsie was sure it was not English which he spoke. She looked at him, his robes much finer than the others but old and worn; gold jewellery about his neck, but his sandals frayed.

‘No, no ransom either.’

‘Send them a warning,’ the robed man suggested.

The man with the club dropped it casually upon the ground with a clatter and fetched a short knife from his belt. He seized the rope and chains above Will’s head and cut him loose. Charity collapsed onto the dusty floor, his face pressed to the dirt.

‘The fingers from his left,’ came the suggestion from the leader. ‘One by one. We’ll send them to his General. If they want him, they will have to come and find him, pay in gold.’

The man with the knife rolled Will with a kick. He sprawled upon his back, arms outstretched, chest bare and bruised. Elsie looked up, at the tiniest gap between the stone at the crux of the old pyramid, at the little glimpse of dark sky and cloud she could see through it. Slowly the moon was sliding into view.

‘You sure they want him, my lord Adato?’ the man asked. ‘They have sent no signal.’

‘They lost so few in the battle and they are proud. Proud but foolish. It is a matter of honour for the British. They don’t leave behind their men. They will claim him, an officer, his family will be rich,’ Adato gestured impatiently, ‘Come, the fingers, Zetu!’

The man with the knife knelt and then something caught his eye. He slipped the blade under a silver chain about Will’s neck, raised at eyebrow at his boss.

‘See! Rich family, that gem looks old, important… might be an heirloom,’ Adato man said adjusting his tattered robes, ‘Take that too, send it with his meat, it will encourage them to pay when they can be sure that it is him.’

The captors exchanged glances and smiled with crooked smiles while the Red Moon glimmered weakly under the Zetu’s touch. He swiped a dirty thumb over the crystal, tugged upon the chain, but it would not come free. Finally he grew impatient. He gave up on the jewel and reapplied the blade to Will’s fingers. Elsie saw the blood well and mix with dust under the sharp edge of the knife.

Above them the moon freed itself from cloud and cast a shaft of silver light, down through the point of the pyramid. It fell across Will Charity, sapped all colour and the blood and bruises on his skin seemed to fade. His body was marble sculpture upon the floor of a tomb, his face serene. Elsie saw Zetu frown uncertainly at the image, a look of concern in his eyes.

‘My Lord…’ he started, unsure.

Around Elsie’s neck the Red Sun whispered softly. Its breath within the chamber. Its words in all their minds. She knew each man could hear it as clearly as she heard her own thoughts, they could hear but would they listen?

_Do not hurt him._

Zetu hesitated, looked desperately to his master.

‘Do it, man! Do it quickly!’

‘The spirits are angry,’ he said, ‘The Old Gods….’

‘Superstitious fool!’ Adato lashed out and struck him hard, Zetu reeled then cowered. Shaking, he replaced the knife.

‘Don’t you dare!’ Elsie cried.

Zetu bore down.

And the Red Moon exploded into crimson fire.

Elsie’s eyes flew open, the image gone, and grabbed at the pommel of her saddle, a tightness in her chest and her heart thumping wildly. She gasped for breath, her eyes racing from the road to the hedgerows, to the trees to the skies. Blue and bright. A cool breeze.

England, she was in England still. She was in England and the men were gone and Will….

Will was standing before her on the sunlit road, his hair ruffling in the breeze.

‘Elsie?’ he said. ‘Whatever is the matter? Did you nod off? I was only gone a moment and here you are half slipping from your horse, did you have too much wine at lunch? Well, well… It is just as well he’s a plodding old thing after all, hmm…’ he placed his hands on his hips and grinned but the expression faltered. ‘I say are you all right? You seem a little…’

‘Who is Adato?’ she asked him.

His easy smile vanished.

‘Adato,’ Elsie said. ‘Who is he? He had you captive, in… in a foreign clime? It looked like Cairo…. Or somewhere near the Nile… Africa certainly from the pictures I have seen… the buildings, the pyramids…’

‘I… stop… _Abyssinia_ …’ Will corrected, agitation in his tone, ‘Adato was from Abyssinia… but that was all a very long time ago, after the war, before I even joined the Bureau. How on earth do you even… ‘

‘I saw him.’

‘Elsie what… don’t be ridiculous, it’s a dream…’

‘No!’

‘Then what did you see?’

‘Him! Adato. His men. And you. A younger you. I don’t know!’ Elsie said, ‘I don’t know, you were in uniform, and beaten, and unconscious, it was like a memory but it can’t be my own, or even yours for you would not remember anything from that night you were so injured. But I know it was real, it felt real, as though I was there! How is that possible? It’s _your_ past, Will, I saw your past I’m certain of it and somehow I was part of it, some part of me was there.’

‘Enough, you are raving like a mad woman. What you speak of is impossible! My past indeed,’

‘Is it?’ Elsie said, watching the waves of terror touch his face, ‘Would you not have said that of this whole adventure but a week ago? Why is this any more ridiculous than magic pendants and generations old curses?’

‘I am not listening to this.’

She stared, shocked by his response. ‘Will! It is you who talk of magic and charms. You are more at ease with this than I. You showed me what I am, and I listened, I accepted it and gave myself to you, and now you try to deny it, and worse deny me. There is a connection between us, call it magic or enchantment if you will, you _did_ when you bedded me, for then it was reason enough, but these past days you have done nothing but attempt to reject it.’

Will’s face flushed angrily.

‘Enough! I live only to protect you, only to serve, I… I should never have succumbed, betrayed my duty, used you in such a way, you who are…’

He stopped suddenly, pressed his lips together.

‘You who are better than I in every way,’ he said quietly. ‘I have failed you I admit, but I do not reject you, I am devoted, you are all to me, my life and my duty, my future and my demise. You think our tryst was the zenith of our connection, then you know nothing at all of our bond, you know nothing of the strength of my feelings and what I try now to do for your honour.’

Elsie looked askance at him. ‘Then show me! Show me, Will, hold me and..’

‘No! Not like that I… you are my… I am not a lover or a husband. I cannot not be made to prove my love that way, in that I can only fail. I can only prove it as my Fate allows, as a Protector should. It is the highest form of love, the ultimate sacrifice and I will protect you, I _will_!’ he turned his back upon her shoulders heaving. Elsie dropped down from Zuse’s back and strode to stand before him. Will grit his teeth and looked hard at the ground. She wanted to reach for him but felt almost afraid of his passion.

‘Then explain the vision,’ she said instead. ‘for that is part of my protection I am sure.’

He shook his head.

‘Will. This amulet...’ she grasped it and pulled it from her neckline to show him, ‘This amulet is not a token advocate of my girlish infatuation, it does not play petty sports to humiliate you in the game of love. It is something deeper, older, inescapable. If you are the Protector you must listen to its wants. It has done nothing but bring us closer, encourage our union. And now it brings me visions, _visions_ Will, of you! I must understand them, I _shall,_ because this must be a warning or a clue, something is coming, and you will tell me what you know for both our sakes.’

He tried to turn away, his face a picture of anguish, his hands still upon his hips, but she caught him and forced him back to her. There were tears of frustration in his eyes.

‘Will! It would not show me your past for no reason at all. It’s trying to tell us something, I’m sure of it. Help me, tell me what you know! Tell me what I saw!’

Charity’s eye dropped resentfully to the Red Sun and she felt it burn her skin, demanding. Beneath his collar she caught the slow burn of the Moon’s crystal.

‘Much of it I don’t remember,’ Will confessed, ‘And the rest I do not wish to. I had left all this behind!’ He looked up to her with vulnerable eyes. ‘Please Elsie, let my past remain buried in the desert where it died.’

For a moment she wavered, then she saw again his torn shirt and bloodied uniform, the glimmer of the Red Moon around his neck.

‘I’m begging you, Will. These amulets protect us, guide us, I can feel it, but we _must_ listen to the story that they tell. What if… what if the men who pursue me now are somehow linked to him, to this man from the war, Adato? What if he seeks me?’

Suddenly Will’s face blanched white and something raw and dangerous seized his tone. Her skin turned cold.

‘If he touches you, I will end him,’ he said. ‘Let me make that clear.’


	14. Chapter 14

As Elsie tried to drag the truth from Will her horse had thrust its head back through the hedge and resumed munching on the meadow. Now Charity strode over to retrieve him and for the first time Elsie could see the potential in the beast as it adhered to his command. It seemed to sense the urgency of its master’s order and immediately stood to attention upon the road. He placed the reins within her grip.

‘Remount,’ Charity said briskly.

‘I will do no such thing until you tell me of this man, Adato, and your unhinged reaction to a simple question. I ill not travel another yard without an explanation, Will.’

‘Why must you so consistently try and defy me?’ Will snapped.

‘Defy you? You have been the one resisting _me_!’

‘That is hardly the same! Once again as I go all out to protect you, you have dug your heels into the sand. I will answer your questions, but not now, and not here. If as you speculate these visions are linked to our current difficulties then you must take my word for it that we would be best erring on the side of discretion and that to debate this history here out in the open would…’

‘There is nothing and no-one here for miles, Will, we can discuss it freely here!’

‘No!’ he all but shouted and Elsie took a backwards pace. Will immediately caught himself, forced politeness to his tone.

‘At Sherburn, once we are ensconced,’ he said and turned his face to Aro. ‘Now remount… please.’ Elsie watched him strengthen a saddle strap that was perfectly taut in the first place.

‘At Sherburn,’ she echoed quietly. She watched him nod tightly. ‘You will tell me your story there? Without censor?’

‘Yes, yes…’ the muscles of his jaw twitched. She saw him close his eyes against a tide of something unseen.

Ah. So there was the reality of it. She had hit upon a nerve and a painful one at that. Charity had once smugly assured her that his ego was quite sound, but it would seem that his roguish persona and cocky charm distracted all who met him from the truth. Just one mentioned of this Adato and he was shaken, truly shaken, his hands white and pinched and his breath constricted in his throat. He could not look her in the eye, he did not trust his voice. He had replaced his hat and hid a pale countenance beneath its brim. Will Charity for all his peacock plumage and display, was in this matter as vulnerable as a downy baby bird. She saw his hands still on the leather before him as he tried to gather himself.

‘Very well,’ she said comprehending at last. ‘We ride on.’

He nodded gratefully but could not say a word. Turning instead to help her mount her ride, adjusting her stirrup. As he refastened its buckle Elsie dropped a hand onto his shoulder briefly and squeezed, unable to let go the distress he so obviously showed.

‘I’m sorry if these memories are painful,’ she said, ‘I should not force the past from you this way. Any man who has been tortured would react the same, I’m sure.’

Will kept his eyes on the leather.

‘The torture does not faze me. I have been no stranger to such things, not then and not since,’ he said flatly, ‘The day I became Protector I anticipated that I would suffer pain, and I have never feared it. It is as much part of my day to day existence as healing magic is to yours, or it was until you mended me...’ he added with a sad little laugh, ‘it is still an odd sensation to feel no physical pain, it makes this other matter so much more distracting.’

‘If it is not the memory of your suffering then what ails you now when you think of the vision? Of Adato?’ Elsie could not help but ask. He finally looked back at her.

‘I was not the only one that he held captive,’ he said, ‘But only I survived.’

‘A comrade?’ Elsie asked thinking of the war. ‘A friend?’

Will shook his head, ‘A little girl. A temple slave. A sacrificial priestess born of a bloodline into a role she never asked for, torn from her family in infancy and raised alone to do their bidding. It was an ancient rite, long abandoned for many thousands of years, but Adato adhered to it still, sought power from it and kept her for the purpose. The tradition dictated come her menarche she would be… Adato and his men they would…’ Will’s voice broke and he cleared his throat quickly, ashamed. Elsie quickly placed her hand upon his cheek where she could feel the tremble he tried so hard to supress. A frantic look passed over his face and he shook himself free.

‘We will speak later,’ she said, aware suddenly of how close to the edge he was coming. They should proceed to Sherburn, for if his memories came unchecked to the fore, she feared the state he might be in, and what he might do.

‘I tried to stop them, I tried to free her,’ he said at once. ‘They had me captive in a chamber behind the altar of the Moon God and though she was not bound in chains as I was, she was just as trapped. Ahmes, her name was Ahmes. It means Child of the Moon,’ he smiled softly. ‘It took days to win her trust and when finally she helped me, I swore I would return her aid. I told her that when I escaped, I’d take her with me. I promised her the world and that last night I almost had her free… I was going to take her back to camp, from there find her a home, perhaps trace her family, but Adato surprised us, six of them, as we snuck out by starlight…’

Will went on, his voice wavering, but somehow unable to stop his confession.

‘I tried to fight them and keep her safe, but I was weakened from captivity. I tried to hold them off, told her to run to the village but she wouldn’t. She was frozen, terrified, and she would not leave me. She barely knew a world outside that temple and that was fearful enough without the violence she then witnessed on her only living friend. I fed her promises I could not fulfil,’ his brow creased, ‘I fed her hope I had no right to share, I was no friend at all…’

‘Will please, you did your best…’

‘I did not do enough!’ he said, ‘If I had known the things that I know now, the tricks and tactics, the modes of combat I’ve since studied, because of that night, because of _her,_ If I had known them _then_ … I could have slowed them down. I dream of it, it haunts me. I see those moments in daylight as often as my nightmares. I relive each second. Lord the first years I could barely sleep at all but even now it comes to me, as har as I repent, as hard as I try and make amends it will not leave me...’

‘Oh Will…’

‘Do not pity me! I deserve no pity for my failing. If I had done more but they… You saw what they did to me.’

‘Will you were not even conscious in the vision that I had. There was no more you could have done.’

‘They should have killed me, killed me instead of her,’ he said bitterly, ‘But to them I had some worth, I could be traded. But Ahmes, _she_ had no future except to be a sacrifice. And I allowed them to… I failed her, Elsie! I failed her! They beat me to a stupor and then they would have turned on her!’

‘You tried,’ she said, trying desperately to calm him. ‘You didn’t _allow_ anything, you tried to stop them and free her with yourself!’

‘I am a _Protector_!’ he said suddenly stepping back from Zuse’s side. ‘Once I found her there it was never about _my_ freedom, but hers! Black magic, curses, superstition, protecting those who would be exploited for their powers, that is my duty, those are _my_ powers and I could not use them properly. She was as much magical as you are, Elsie and I of all the people ought to have been able to intervene, release her from that temple, _protect_ her future, and yet, I failed! If the man who hunts you now is Adato, if he somehow…’

Will tore his hat from his head and buried the fingers of one hand in his hair, tugging and pulling in frustration.

‘God if it is him,’ he was saying as he paced about the road, ‘But why? Why would he know of you, of the Amulet?’

Elsie thought for a moment of the vision. Of the man examining the Red Moon and estimating its value. Perhaps he had gleaned more. A man who valued sacrifice and magic would find the Red Amulets’ potential intriguing. Could he really have come all this way, years later. What might he want from them?

‘If I could just remember, why can I not remember…’ Will was ranting. Elsie shook the pictures from her mind.

‘Remember what, Will?’

‘How I came to escape,’ he said desperately, ‘I remember their attack at the Temple, I remember Ahmes screaming, but then there is a gap.’

‘A gap?’

Wills stood still and nodded at the ground.

‘The campaign ended in 1868, my battalion went home. I was not with them… that is why… why Catherine married. It was assumed I was dead, I had not been located on any search.’

‘How long were you missing?’ Elsie asked, eyes widening.

‘Two years,’ Will answered. ‘When I finally returned to London the doctors there assumed I had been tortured, imprisoned all that time, from the scars upon my person and the blankness of my memory, but I never quite believed it. I am not the sort of man to simply forget…’

‘Who is to say how any man respond to such pain?’ Elsie said.

‘No,’ Will shook his head, ‘As I have told you I never feared pain or death, I fought only for the justice of others and when I look within I…’ he stopped, looked ashamed. ‘Perhaps it is true. Perhaps I am so feeble. I suppose it is too much to hope my amnesia was caused by a spell,’ he said softly, ‘Perhaps I ought just to accept my failings and my weakness, that the truth may be I simply choose not to remember, like any base coward.’

‘Stop it!’ Elsie said, ‘Will you are no coward that much is plain.’

‘I must be, at the root of it all, beneath all my foolish bravado. I know what I must look like to you, Elsie, I am a caricature of a hero, but look beneath the disguises for a moment. I did not choose my path, I had no desire to fight. What true bravery is there?’

Elsie dropped down from the saddle.

‘That is why you are brave! You are the bravest man I know to have carried without choice the burden of Protector since childhood, to have lost your family, to have fought in wars, to have defended the weak because it is your destiny…’ Will looked away from her, his lower lip bitten hard between his teeth. ‘Why must you be so cruel to yourself?’ Elsie went on, ‘Why must you deride yourself for circumstances which were never your own fault. You have done nothing but good…’

‘I have made many mistakes Elsie, you barely even know me, until a week ago I was entirely hidden from your view, a spectre on the outskirts of your life.’

‘Watching over me, keeping me safe, not a spectre Will, but an angel, a guardian angel.’

He glanced back at her.

‘You will find no criticism in me. You do not need to tell me all the details of the past for me to believe in you,’ Elsie said, ‘You and I have been part of one another’s worlds for longer than either of us remember, from before we were born.’

‘I failed Ahmes… a little girl whose powers equalled yours in many ways, whose position was as vulnerable, whom others wished to use for their own ends. What if… what if all these years later I have learned nothing, what if I remain as weak now as I was then? What if I fail again? You are the very reason I was put upon this earth; I knew that before I met you but now… there are not words to explain what you mean to me. I never knew such power. You are beyond me, you could destroy me with a word, a single word, Elsie.’

She watched a tear roll down his cheek, saw the back of his left hand come up to swipe it roughly away.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said ashamed and distraught. ‘I would not have you see me like this.’

‘Will…’ Elsie took a step closer.

‘How can you have any faith in your Protector when he crumbles like a child and the mere mention of his past. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’ He turned his back and dug about in his pockets for a handkerchief, but his coat was still hanging over Aro’s saddle and his breeches turned up nothing. Elsie fetched her own lace kerchief from her sleeve and stood by his side.

‘Here,’ she said proffering it. Charity sniffed as respectably as he could and reluctantly took it.

‘I shall ruin it,’ he said ruefully. ‘Ladies handkerchief are not designed for such shameful bawling.’

‘I will forgive your manly nose this once,’ She said staring ahead of herself at the trees in the hedgerow. She heard him blow his nose miserably.

‘Normally I would have some sort of witty retort,’ he said, refolding the lace square and positioning his nose to blow again. ‘But I seem to have run dry of humour this afternoon.’ He blew again and sniffed hard.

‘It is a shame your nose has not followed suit,’ Elsie said. ‘And run dry.’ She felt him look over at her and smirked.

‘That is… uncalled for!’ he said.

Elsie looked over at him and tried to make him smile. His eyes shone a brilliant green with his grief and there were tearstains on his cheeks but he managed a twitch to his lips. She gently placed both thumbs on his face and dried his skin. Will look down at her, exhausted.

‘I know you are a rascal,’ Elsie said, ‘And a wit, and an adventurer. I know you are partial to daring feats and deeds and have the most enormous collection of courageous tales to tell at dinner…’

‘What an absolute fool I sound,’ Will said, ‘As superficial as a lady’s painted smile.’

‘…And I know you have a penchant for costume and for drama and have by all accounts something lined up for us in that vein in Northumberland…’ she continued.

‘Oh Lord, I’d almost forgotten,’ he said despairingly, ‘You’ll think me even more the fool when we reach the caravan…’

Elsie let it go, determined not to be distracted by whatever ruse he had plotted.

‘Will, please listen to me.’

He sighed and she felt his belly press against her on the exhale, his whole frame seeming to sag sadly in disappointment with himself.

‘Go on,’ he said, defeated.

‘All of these personas, Punch and Judy at the pier, the old woman in our carriage, my various husbands in our various inns, Mr Masters, Mr Trent, Mr Boldfield…’

‘Bold _wood_ ,’ he said.

‘They are all of them, _you_ ,’ she smiled, ‘They are all of them just Will, to me.’

He tried to look away but her hands upon his face kept him trapped. She watched his internal conflict play out across his features. For a moment she saw him as he had once been long before the fancy frock coats and the sparky banter; a traumatised young soldier in the heat of a battle torn desert, a homeless and rejected boy wandering in the winter snow. He had survived it all, damaged but beautiful, and it was enough.

‘Just Will,’ he echoed sadly, ‘How uninspiring.’

‘Just Will,’ she confirmed, ‘He is the only version of you I wish for. And you will always be good enough, and you can never fail me.’

‘I would not be so certain…’

‘You cannot, Will, for everything you do is out of love, the highest form of love. I believe in you.’

He blinked and met her eyes, a tiny smile flickering briefly about his lips. The creases at his crows’ feet deepened with affection but then he seemed to catch himself and tried to paint a mask of respectable chivalry over his bare emotion. He sniffed and stood more upright, tore his eyes away from hers.

‘Right, well thank you,’ he started.

‘No,’ Elsie said firmly and his gaze became troubled. ‘Don’t hide.’

She pulled him forward into a kiss. For a beat he froze uncertain and then between them Elsie felt the warmth of the amulets against their skin, not commanding now but rejoicing, encouraging their union. Their lips parted briefly and she looked around, at the setting sun of the late autumn afternoon and at the magical halo all about them, glowing softly.

‘What do you think it means? When that thing appears?’ Will asked gazing about them at the sparkling shimmering shield. ‘The last time that happened you were closing up that nasty wound of mine but there is nothing here to heal.’

‘Some might argue with that,’ Elsie said.

Will looked charmingly awkward.

‘And besides that’s not all that happened that night…’ Elsie mused to lighten the atmosphere between them.

‘Ah,’ Will said his embarrassment wrestling with his perpetual inner rogue, ‘Well… um…’

‘I think it’s a sign. A blessing if you like,’ Elsie said.

‘You talk like a soppy romantic girl,’ he said rising to the challenge.

‘I am a romantic girl, just as you are a romantic hero, and there is nothing wrong with either of us.’

He contemplated her with his arms about her waist.

‘Is that so?’ he asked.

‘We are perfectly matched,’ Elsie placed her hand on the Red Moon and watched his eyes crinkle again. ‘I have missed you Will, these last few days, even though you have been with me all the while.’

‘I know,’ he said softly.

Elsie moved her hands onto his chest, felt the strong beat of his heart. He followed the movement with a peaceful gaze. ‘Will…?’ she started.

‘Hmm,’ he said.

‘Might we…?’

He met her eye and smiled as her fingers looped into the fastenings of his shirt. With a smooth movement he lifted her at once into his arms. Elsie shrieked once then giggled, pressed her mouth against his, felt the slow suction of his lips and the drag of his wet tongue. He shifted her weight, moved forward to where the sun was turning red between the trees, painting the grass with a crimson flame. He laid her down upon the meadow, moved his body over hers.

‘I thought we needed to press on to Sherburn,’ she said looking up at him.

‘We have a little time,’ Will said.


	15. Chapter 15

They arrived late to Sherburn, after an evening in twilight following the rough road into the village, a first frost dusting the cobble as they arrived. Had it been another night Elsie might have complained at the hour or the cold, but Will’s touch still warmed her, the taste of him lingered and ahead of them lay the promise of a cosy bed and hearthside. The inn was small, the bed smaller, but with no need to maintain dignity or pretences of respectability she was only too pleased to feel Charity curl about her body to make best use of the space. She willingly accepted the close heat of his body, pushed back against his stomach and thighs with need, but he surprised her when he fell quickly into sleep.

After their tryst at sunset he had transformed more or less into the man she had grown to love after days of estrangement. A twinkle in his eyes and a brilliant smile, he was the picture of her charming rogue. On their journey he was swift to banter with her once again but after a mile or so she noted he was faster to fall into an odd silence which she felt compelled to fill, his gaze dropping thoughtfully to the reins, his body swaying with Aro’s step. If for a minute Elsie’s chatter failed it would take an effort to rouse him and pin his focus on her voice. The story he had told her of his past was heavy in his mind even after their reunion and nothing could shield her from his preoccupation.

In the night he clung to her hard enough to wake her, though in truth she was primed to do so, keen to be within his arms again, her urge to kiss him never far from her thoughts. As the village church struck two she felt him tighten his arm about her, heard him murmur at her neck and turned towards him, ready, her hands upon the soft skin of his hip and the comforting breadth of his chest. She nuzzled against his face ready to capture his lips, whispered his name. Will pulled her closer, his hand wending to the small of her back. Elsie tangled her legs with his and pushed herself into the welcoming safety of his embrace, the tip of her nose pressed against his rough unshaven jaw.

Against the dampness of his tears.

Elsie opened her eyes and called his name but the slant of silver moonlight was bright within the room and on his sleeping features. She saw the frown between his brows, the trickle of moisture from between thick lashes. Still dreaming, Will took a shuddering but quiet breath, twisted in her arms, tried to hide his face from something unseen.

Elsie felt her heart sink. For all the pleasure they had shared that evening his distress was clear and she had brought it upon him. Her vision, her insistence on discussing his memories. She had dredged up his past, the pain he had endured, the little girl for whose death he felt responsible, his fear of failure. Though she could not tell precisely what he dreamt of now, she knew his dreams had once been more peaceful, sleeping like the dead beside her, waking hard and needy.

Softly she wiped Will’s cheek with a thumb, heard the hitch in his breathing, a sob trapped inside him with whatever tormented his subconscious. Elsie bit her lip and felt a pang of grief. The longer she knew him, the more his layers peeled away, and the more he seemed to hurt. She had never wanted to bring pain, not to anyone, but especially not to the man who had dedicated his existence to her safety. Perhaps the legend had been right all along, the Protected should never meet their Protectors. Well now she had, and it could not be altered, she could only do that of which she was capable to bring him comfort.

Elsie shifted up the bed as far as she could manage and pulled him to her breast. Carefully, gently, she smoothed his hair and dried his cheeks until his breathing slowed. She hushed him until no more tears fell. Will curled around her once again, but this time her body did not react with the ache of passion, sensing instead the different kind of intimacy he sought.

‘Mama!’

Elsie’s eyes shot open with a gasp. She heard a giggle beside her, rubbed at her eyes and found Will leaning on his elbow to her left on the narrow bed.

‘Mama look!’ the high pitched voice carried clean through the window of their room and in a moment she became aware of the trundle of wheels on cobbles, the bustle of a busy village square, butt he sun was hardly up.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked groggily. Will smoothed her hair away from her forehead in an unconscious imitation of her own actions in the night. He leaned down to kiss her with a lingering press of his mouth.

‘Have you lost track of the days?’ he asked.

‘What?’

‘You didn’t register the size of the moon last night?’ he continued.

‘What? Will, what are you talking about, don’t speak in riddles it’s far too early, the sky is still grey.’

‘Oh you are a grumpy puss first thing,’ he said cheerfully and hefted himself over her so he might kiss at her neck. Elsie wriggled in faint protest but succeeded only in noticing his arousal pressed against her thigh. Though her mind remained groggy her body insisted upon waking.

‘Will!’ she chided.

‘That great big silvery moon?’ his voice came muffled from her throat. ‘That so beautifully lit our path?’ he sucked at the top of one breast, pulling back her chemise to gain access. Charity glanced up at her and she gave him a confused look.

‘Harvest moon?’ he tried.

‘What?’

‘Lord you really have been cooped up all this time,’ he said, ‘Village festival? Harvest’s done? Didn’t you ever see one of these?’

‘I… I heard of them,’ she said feeling naïve. ‘That’s now?’

‘Yes,’ he said patiently, ‘That is now, didn’t you see the stalls as we arrived?’

‘The…? Will, we arrived close to midnight I wasn’t really looking I just…’

‘Ah, just wanted to get up to bed, hmm?’ he winked, ‘Well I can hardly blame you, Mrs Boldwood. Your husband is a very fine specimen, I’m fairly sure the innkeeper’s wife has taken rather a fancy to him…’

‘You are so unutterably vain,’ Elsie grumbled, secretly delighted to hear him in good fettle.

‘I have cause to be, now,’ he heaved her down the bed a little, ‘How did you get all the way up here, wandering about the bed of a night without me, come back… down… here…’ ah that’s better,’ he clambered up so that he was comfortably nested between her legs then kissed her again, mouthing her neck sensually, ‘Mmm,’ he moaned, but Elsie was still intrigued by the Harvest.

‘Will?’

‘Hmm… it’s early, hush now, there’s a good girl,’ he ground his pelvis into her, sucked on her ear. Outside there was a shout and some excited laughter. Elsie could hear children chanting a rhyme.

‘Is the festival today then?’ she asked.

‘Looks like,’ he ran a hand under the edge of the chemise and up her thigh. Elsie grabbed it.

‘I’ve never been to a harvest festival,’ she said.

‘Lots of food,’ Will said distractedly, ‘Food and music and games and quaint old pagan traditions, costumes sometimes…’

‘Costumes? Really?’

‘Mmm,’ he said hand still pinned but his mouth very much trying to make up for it, ‘Yes… sometimes,’ he angled himself over her, used his free arm to pull her knee up, ‘God you smell incredible,’ he sighed deeply and with need. Elsie felt her skin goosebump under his breath, her nipples growing taut as the scratch of his cheek dragged across her skin. Outside someone started hammering something, a male voice began singing a tune in time to it.

‘What sort of… costumes?’ she managed.

Will leaned back and looked at her.

‘Well I don’t know, depends on the village,’ he confessed. ‘Elsie why are you so interested in the festival? We can go and look at it later if you like as we’re leaving, but at this moment I declare us otherwise occupied.’

Elsie felt herself pout, Will’s eyes widened,

‘Good God are you actually telling me you’d rather be out there eying up pies and prize turnips than in here with me, doing _this_?’

‘I’m curious!’

‘I’m offended,’ Will said petulantly. Elsie laughed and she caught the little light in his eye which told her he was playing with her. ‘Go on,’ he said, ‘Have a look at it then.’ He sat back on his heels and she scrabbled out of bed. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him flop dramatically onto the mattress, a lover spurned.

‘If you’re going to lean out the window you might want to cover your…’ he suggested.

‘Got it,’ she said adjusting th chemise. Elsie opened the old latch and pushed forth the pane. The noise of the village hit her full force. A chattering lively cacophony of excited sound. She spotted the stalls Will had mentioned lining the edges of the market and heaving with apples and potatoes and cabbage, a host of goodies harvested in recent days. Another held pot after pot of jam and pickle. Another was being stacked with pies. Down a lane she could see a wagon heaped with hay. Across the front of the little butcher’s shop a pretty garland of bunting, the same across the baker whose window was filled with hefty looking loaves and pretty cakes.

‘Morning ma’am,’ a voice to her right made her jump and she looked sharply alongside her to find a man on a ladder holding even more bunting in a bundle and a hammer in one hand. Several nails stuck out between his lips.

‘Good lord!’ she pulled her chemise closed even tighter. ‘What are you doing there!?’

She felt Will come up behind her, slip his arms protectively around her waist. A quick glance told her that at least he had pulled on his breeches but really standing bare chested in the upper window of an inn was not appropriate behaviour for a gentleman like Mr Boldwood.

‘Decoration ma’am, morning sir,’ the man said around the nails.

‘What time does it all kick off?’ Will asked.

‘Round eleven sir, that’s the Harvest Home right there,’ he nodded behind him at the alley and the cart of hay. Elsie’s heart jumped a little as the ladder beneath him wobbled with the motion.

‘The Harvest..?’ she echoed.

‘Last cartload of the harvest,’ Will said, ‘They bring that back and the harvest supper can start. Or the harvest lunch as it sems to be here.’

‘Oh it’ll go on ‘til supper don’t you mind,’ the man said. ‘There’s games and dancing planned and of course t’innkeeper’s been working on a brew for the occasion.’

‘Dancing?’ Elsie suddenly said brightly.

‘Why yes, ma’am, there’s a theme this year ‘an ‘all, you know what girls are like, sir,’ he winked at Will.

‘Oh?’ he said nonchalantly.

‘Any excuse for a pretty new dress,’ the man confirmed.

‘I _knew_ it! Girls _do_ liked dresses,’ Will said smugly. Elsie kicked him in the shin.

‘Oh yes sir, been working on them weeks an’ weeks, silly costumes for the day, the kiddies love it of course….’

Elsie could feel her eyes growing large and she peered across the market trying to catch a glimpse of the costumes amidst the preparations. Behind her she could feel Will examining her face. The man on the ladder looked between them.

‘You know if you’re planning on staying for the night,’ he said removing the nails from his mouth, ‘There’s a lady opposite who might be able to fix something for you. Margaret’s got quite the collection, keeps it in the village hall, likes to do a bit of the old amateur dramatics now and again, usually the nativity of course but she goes up to the big house sometimes and puts on fancy plays…’

‘Fancy?’ Will asked, ‘What sort of plays are we talking about here?’

‘Oh, now I wouldn’t know much about that. Fancy writers and such, famous plays. She used to be a governess. There was one… now what were it about, it didn’t sound that interesting but everyone at the big house was wild for it… something about a tiny a village, she did it last year for them.’

Will raised his eyebrows. ‘A tiny village? I don’t know that one.’

‘Yes, must have been some wishy washy liberal thing about society or some such, now what were it called,’ the man scratched the back of his head and the ladder wobbled again. ‘I remember because the village were the title of the thing which struck me as funny at the time… you’re an educated man, sir, you’ll know it I’m sure… it wasn’t called The City.. Two Cities…’

‘That’s Dickens… it’s a book,’ Will said dully.

‘Yes, not a book, a play… Village, Town… not a City…’

Will leaned one arm on the window ledge and made a show of waiting, rapt. Elsie tried not to laugh.

‘Hamlet!’ The man exclaimed. ‘That were it!’

Will pursed his lips. ‘Oh that Tiny Village… Well you can see how he came to the conclusion…’ he said and vanished back into the room where she could hear him giggling.

The man on the ladder pointed across the street to a cottage with a green door. ‘That’s her house,’ he said, ‘She’d be only too glad to help and we’d surely love to have you at the supper. Now if you’ll excuse me,’ he changed his footing and slid suddenly down the ladder. Elsie jumped. Will looked up from the bed where he was fastening his shirt cuffs.

‘Gone is he?’ he asked. ‘That’s almost as good as one of my exits.’

‘Will…?’ she felt a fluttering in her chest. ‘I know we should probably get moving but….

He tipped his head to one side and looked at her.

‘You want to stay for the party, don’t you?’ he asked.

‘Yes!’

He looked at her curiously, ‘There are many more exciting parties you could attend on my arm, you know, I could sneak us in almost anywhere, grand houses, balls… you’d love a ball, a proper one with an orchestra hired for the evening, and champagne and…’ he stopped mid sweep of his arm. ‘But you want to go to this one?’ he asked.

Elsie nodded.

‘You know we shouldn’t be drawing attention to ourselves,’ he reasoned.

‘That’s why it’s so perfect!’ she argued. ‘It’s just a harvest festival in a little village.’

‘To which two strangers turn up and make themselves centre of attention. No, Elsie I’m sorry but we will end up talk of the place and word carries.’

Elsie felt her face drop. He was right of course, they had more reason than ever after her frightening vision to move on and get to safety as quickly as possible. The lull of the last few days was over. Something was pursuing them, and they must be careful. Outside a group of children was laughing somewhere close by and the sound grated. She remembered too many occasions the village children had visited the estate for one reason or another, but especially around harvest time. She’d never once been allowed to play with them or join the fun, and their laughter was transformed from a joyous sound to one that represented only loneliness. Now here it was again, the sound of happiness from which she was excluded. She felt her eyes burn, turned to fetch her corset and petticoat just in time before a tear escaped.

She pulled the skirts on and struggled with the ties until Will came up behind her and silently fastened them. Elsie lifted her bodice and will placed his hands on her shoulders to stop her, slipped them down over her arms and rested his chin in the crook of her neck.

‘You really want to go?’ he asked.

Elsie nodded.

‘It’s just a silly dance,’ he said.

‘I’ve never been dancing,’ she confessed.

Will laughed behind her, ‘oh come now, every girl has been dancing. It’s all you ever learn to do, read and sew and play piano and dance prettily so you might find a husband. _Years_ of lessons…’

‘Lessons yes, but never a dance,’ Elsie cut in. Will hesitated then turned her in his arms.

‘Really? Never? You weren’t taken into society and shown off at eighteen?’

Elsie shook her head aware that she might look like a foolish girl before him. A grown woman with magical powers and a curse upon her shedding tears because she’d never had her moment in public, never worn a gown at a debutant ball. For the most part it did not matter, truly, she thought little of simpering girls whose whole ambition was a well matched husband and a society wedding but sometimes…

‘Well, well,’ Will said, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. ‘You’ve never been a princess for the day, hmm?’

‘Shut up,’ she snapped, ‘I know its silly.’ Will’s face twitched as though she had slapped him.

‘No,’ he said, ‘It isn’t, I’m not… I wouldn’t tease you,’ he said.

‘All you do is tease me, Will, everything becomes a joke with you.’

He looked at her stunned. ‘What… I… Elsie don’t be cruel!’

She regretted her words in a heartbeat. She knew him better than that, that still waters ran deep, that beneath his humour and his charm he cared and a good deal too, that really it was all bluster and defence but for some reason she was hurting and she couldn’t stand his bravado one more moment. The effects of her destiny were rapidly becoming clearer. She had never been normal, and she never would, she had never had normal things, a normal life and nothing conventional. She had been hidden from the world, she had no friends, no place in society, and no future within it, she had never even been to a dance. Suddenly it symbolised everything she had ever missed, and ever would, her future would never be typical or routine, and she wanted this one thing, just this one thing so that for a moment it could be, and she could be like every other woman.

‘It isn’t fair,’ she said like a child. ‘None of this is fair. Not on you, not on me. I don’t see the point of this, this curse, this magic, I don’t see the point of any of it, all it does is make our world frightening and dangerous and lonely. You’ve spent years separated from your family, you lost the woman you loved and I… I’ve been locked away like Rapunzel for the best years of my life and once you take me to wherever we are going I will be again. Alone. I will always, _always_ be alone.’

‘Elsie…’

‘It’s fine,’ she swiped at her eyes, ‘It’s fine… I know… It’s my destiny and we need to get going or I won’t have a future at all, just give me a moment and we can get moving again. It was nice while it lasted… this honeymoon.’ She buttoned the tiny fastenings at her wrists and then went to the mirror to try and fix her hair. Behind her Will glanced beyond the window at the preparations in the village then turned back to watch her reflection.

‘You’re not alone,’ he said softly, ‘Neither of us is any more. We have one another…. Don’t we?’

Elsie pinned a curl and said nothing. Will glanced at the door.

‘I should…’ he started.

‘Go on,’ she said tersely, ‘Go ready the horses or whatever it is you must do, I’ll wait.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘It’s not even your fault, Will. It’s just…. The hand we were dealt I suppose. We just have to get on with it.’

He swallowed and looked at the ground. ‘You’re always so… strong,’ he said, ‘I didn’t realise that you even…’

‘What? It didn’t occur to you that I’m a woman? That I have the same needs as any other ‘soppy romantic girl’? That I want more than the pretty dresses and shiny pretend wedding bands? That maybe I don’t want to be running for my life? That maybe I am scared? That I’d like some happier memories before whatever is going to happen to us happens. That I would like to dance with the man I love before it’s too…’ she stopped herself and leant heavily on the dresser.

She saw him take a step towards her then hesitate, pull himself back, his jaw tense and his eyes wet. He was out of his depth and probably just as frightened, but she could not comfort him, she suddenly did not have the strength and the fear she had been fighting for so long welled within her and insisted it be heeded.

Elsie closed her eyes tight, heard the door close behind her a moment later.


	16. Chapter 16

She was a fool, a selfish fool. In the time it took Elsie to finish fixing her hair the silence descended in their empty room and reminded her pointedly of her unwarranted accusations. Will had been right, she was not alone, but now that he had left the inn, she could see that without him she would be, totally, and even that brief taste of solitude was too painful to endure. Had he not always been with her, unseen, unheard, but present? In his unique position as her Protector he more than anyone could understand sacrifice and heartache for the sake of the amulet about their necks but once again she had pushed and kicked and rejected him. Found herself riled and angry when all he did was try to care for her and keep her safe. It was only in the last few days she had begun to get a true sense of the pain that lay beneath his swaggering demeanour, it was only now that the cracks in his façade began to show, that he began to trust her with his past. He had been tortured while she had been sheltered, he had lost his family while she had been kept safe in her tower with hers. His world had been unrelentingly cruel and she had dared to whine about a dance.

Elsie jammed the last pin into position and tugged her bodice into place, her eyes wandering across the busy square outside to try and catch a glimpse of him. The village was filling at a pace, the sun beating strongly on the colourful banners and bunting, supplies of the local harvest arriving on carts and upon the backs of labourers. She could not see Will. No matter, he would most likely be with the horses, grooming Aro with a slow and soothing rhythm, his forehead rested against the beast’s neck as he worked. She left their room and took the stairs to the courtyard.

Aro and Zuse were stabled behind the inn and Zuse as ever had his head in a hay bag oblivious to everything but his breakfast. Aro was a little more alert, his large brown eyes surveying his domain, but he was also conspicuously alone and ungroomed. Elsie ran a hand down over his neck and smoothed his hair while he snorted in distaste and tossed his mane. Where then was Will?

She trod a path around the building, down an alley and out into the square, held her hand over her brow to shield her eyes as she searched, but there was no sign. Will Charity of course could vanish more easily than many other men after years of secretive missions and she realised too late that if he had decided to take off somewhere alone there was no way she could follow. She felt a cold frisson of anxiety in her chest. He would not leave her surely, he had sworn to protect, but ah, she was an ungrateful Protected at the best of times, perhaps she had truly hurt his feelings? Elsie worried at her lip, stood helpless under the awning of the inn.

‘Something the matter, miss?’ a child’s voice interrupted her. Elsie glanced round to find a girl of no more than eight perched upon a stool. In her lap her fingers were busy weaving corn sheaths into dollies, a large blunt needle threaded with ribbon wending its way between loops of golden corn. The girl caught Elsie looking. ‘Dolly, miss? Sixpence? I’ll let you pick the ribbon?’ She looked up at her with wide blue eyes.

‘I’m a little old for dollies,’ Elsie said gently and resumed her search, trying to catch a glimpse of one man’s face beneath his top hat, on the other side of the square.

‘Silly!’ the girl giggled, ‘’tis not a toy, miss.’

‘No?’ she said vaguely.

‘No, ‘tis for the spirit,’ the girl explained, ‘When we’ve cleared all the fields the last sheaths left standing, we make them into dollies so the spirit has a place to live until the spring…’

Elsie turned back to her. ‘What?’

‘Corn dolly, miss, you ain’t never seen one?’

‘I… no, I don’t think we have them in my part of the country.’

‘Well you wouldn’t see a poor spirit homeless would you now miss?’ she grinned revealing a missing tooth and another half descended. She was a healthy tomboyish little thing, rich auburn hair cut relatively short but already tangled. She had freckles across her nose and a quick and easy smile.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Alexandra, miss.’

‘Well Alexandra I’m afraid I don’t have my purse with me.’

‘Oh… well,’ the child thought quickly, ‘Maybe you can take one anyhow and come back with the coin?’ she dug about in her apron and produced a thin looking dolly with a red ribbon. ‘It matches your necklace, miss,’ she nodded. Elsie covered the amulet instinctively with one hand.

‘That’s very kind but…’

Before her Alexandra’s face changed, her mouth suddenly wide with laughter and her eyes sparkling. She giggled and pointed behind Elsie. ‘Oh miss, watch out!’

‘He- _haw!_ ’

Elsie span and shrieked, all at once confronted with an abomination dressed in a gentleman’s frock coat with huge paper mule’s head. The thing made a galloping gesture on the spot and reared with its front ‘hooves’ before proudly making the terrible noise again and sending Alexandra into fits of hilarity.

It had to be Charity under there.

‘What are you doing?’ Elsie hissed forgetting in an instant how worried she had been.

‘It’s a costume,’ Will said redundantly.

‘I can see that, you fool.’

‘Corn dolly, sir?’ Alexandra said again, ‘For the lady?’ she waved the doll under the mule’s long nose. Will bent forward and the enormous mask like head opened its jaws as though it might eat it. It whinnied and blew and he-hawed and made to chase her round Elsie’s skirts. Alexandra screamed delightedly. The mule thing cackled back.

‘Well now, let me see… we donkeys don’t usually carry a purse,’ Will patted down his pockets dramatically and gave an exaggerated shrug. Alexander looked a little sad. ‘Ah, but wait!’ Will said, ‘What’s this… hmm?’

He leaned forward and reached a hand behind the child’s ear, retrieving from behind it a shining sixpence.

‘Oh ho ho!’ he announced proudly as he flashed the coin before Alexandra’s amazed eyes.

‘Is that for me, sir?’ she said.

‘It must be, wouldn’t you say?’ he leaned forward again and repeated the trick, finding another coin behind her other ear, the jaw of the mule dropped in awe. ‘Why you are made of coin! Here…’ Elsie couldn’t help but smile as Will knelt to the ground to be on a level with the child and carefully put the pair of sixpences into her hand. She politely gave him the dolly in return, and he inclined the mule’s head.

‘Why thank you,’ he said sombrely, ‘Now run along.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the little girl bobbed a curtsy and once she was at a distance Will tried to struggle out of his bizarre headgear. He wrestled with it for a moment before his shoulders sagged and turned helplessly to Elsie.

‘You couldn’t um…’ he gestured to his head. Elsie snorted. His enormous donkey ears stuck up at odd angles, the left bent almost in two and the trail of a paper flower garland fell to one side of his ‘face.’

‘What in God’s name is it, Will?’

‘A donkey.’

‘Why?’

‘Well it’s a disguise isn’t it?’ he said slightly tetchily, ‘For later,’ he grabbed at the donkey’s jaw and tugged a bit, ‘Help a chap, out will you?’ he said and bent forward.

Elsie grabbed the ridiculous mask and pulled while Will attempted to back up like some kind bull with its horns stuck in a matador’s cape. From within she could hear a litany of grumbles and protests as he twisted and turned until eventually it gave way and his head appeared with a pop, his hair an absolute state and his cheeks flushed.

‘Bloody warm in there,’ he said, straightening and retrieving the head from Elsie. He patted its nose and looked at her appealingly albeit slightly scant of breath.

‘You wanted to go to the dance,’ he said.

‘Not with a donkey!’

‘Good heavens that’s a bit entitled don’t you think. Donkey not good enough for you, eh? I see how it is.’ He blew out his lips in mock outrage and stood with one hand on his hip and the other cradling the shabby donkey’s head to his side. He looked preposterous.

Elsie was laughing too hard to reply for a moment but eventually forced some sobriety to her voice. ‘Will, truly, I am sorry, you’re quite right we mustn’t draw attention to ourselves if this Adato is behind our problems.’

‘Well quite, but if I wear a disguise…’ he dropped a heavy wink and smiled at her hopefully. ‘He would never think you were dancing with a mule, now would he?’

‘I was unreasonable, Will, but we should sick to the original plan, although I do appreciate…’ she waved at the donkey, ‘Whoever this chap is.’

‘Bottom!’

‘What?’

‘It’s Bottom!’ Will exclaimed joyfully, ‘The donkey, from the play,’ he nodded across the road, ‘I’ve been at Mrs Margaret’s she has the most wonderful pieces. Apparently she did _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ a while back, he’s a bit dusty and moth eaten and his flowers are rather droopy but…’

‘Bottom? The weaver?’

‘Yes!’

‘Why would you pick him over Hamlet or… or Henry V? He was an absolute fool!’ she laughed.

‘Well the perfect casting then,’ Will said wryly, ‘And besides I thought you could be Titania.’

‘Oh Will, why? I would be better as Puck, he fitted not one world or the other.’

‘It should be obvious if you think about it,’ Charity said, cheeks colouring. ‘She was a creature of great beauty and magic…’

‘Ah, that’s very sweet, Will.’

‘Robin cast a spell upon her,’ Will said, ‘And the fairy queen fell hopelessly in love with the fool, Bottom.’

Elsie smiled, ‘How apt, but I am certain I have no spell cast upon me now, Will, you are no fool and it is true love I feel.’

‘ _Methinks, mistress you have little reason for that_ ,’ said Will, ‘ _And yet to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays._ ’

Elsie’s eyes widened a little, ‘I didn’t know you knew the play so well,’ she said.

‘I have lived many lives, none of them my own,’ Will said theatrically, his eyes lighting on Alexandra who was swinging a tiny boy around by the arms in the centre of the square, ‘So, this dance, seems our little friend has started early! Could teach us a thing or two, by the looks,’ he smiled, his eyes soft.

Elsie hesitated. ‘I was being silly, Will…’

He drew a breath and reluctantly tore his gaze from the children playing. ‘No, I was being insensitive. Hard to believe I know, but I do fall foul of it at times as you so correctly pointed out…’ he held up a hand, ‘No, you were right. I try too hard to keep the mood light at times and I forget that… that sometimes that can be hurtful and appear as thought I do not care.’

‘Will, I know you care…’

‘I do. Very much. But sometimes I ought to be straight about that. Especially with you. I… I’m not used to having someone close, someone with whom I can be honest. Someone who if I do reveal my weakness… won’t immediately stab me in the back,’ his eyes creased but there was no real humour to his tone.

‘Will, I would not hurt you. I can be clumsy in my words but I would never cause you pain. You can be yourself with me.’

‘And you with I, truly, forgive me if it seemed like I teased you in anyway, or dismissed your worries. I have been preoccupied, with what you saw in the vision, it disturbed me, I blamed myself for our troubles.’

‘It is no more your fault than mine that these men pursue us, that any of this is happening.’

‘But still I ignored your plight to focus upon my own, and I am not the only one whose life has been affected by events. I should have realised that, should have treated you with more care.’

‘Will, you have been the epitome of care! Enough of this now, we are friends.’

‘No, Elsie, Lord knows, I have missed a good many of life’s pleasures and comforts,’ he swallowed and toyed with the mask in his hands, ‘but I ought to have thought more about your situation. This is not easy for either of us, we have both, in our own ways, lost out on so much.’ He looked back briefly to the children, somehow unable to look elsewhere.

She covered one of his hands with hers. ‘You were only trying to keep me safe.’

‘It’s one night,’ he said looking up at her at last, ‘And we shall be in disguise and… and if we run into bother the amulet’s will warn us, what’s one night, Elsie? It’s just a little fun, a little _ordinary_ fun,’ he laughed sadly and squeezed her hand, ‘Who are we to know what lies ahead and besides… though it is arguably to late for you to be a princess now you have a wedding band upon your finger…’

Elsie opened her mouth in protest.

‘You can be my Queen instead,’ he finished a little too earnestly and Elsie felt her throat tighten. Will took a moment to clear his own. ‘Right well, I suggest we make ready,’ he nodded back at their inn, ‘Though it is early yet if you wanted to take a stroll or…’ he gestured vaguely at the stalls with an expression that spoke of bravery in the face of utter disinterest. ‘Look at the turnips.’

She laughed at his courage in the face of root vegetables and he rewarded her with a quintessentially charming Charity smile. Elsie ran her fingers up his arm, hooked her elbow through his. ‘I believe my desire to sample the local pies can wait an hour or two,’ she said, ‘And I owe you an apology too… for I rudely interrupted you this morning.’

He frowned at her briefly before his face changed. ‘Oh… _oh_ … well, yes how rude of you, most ungrateful,’ Will guided her towards the entrance of the Inn and negotiated Bottom’s head through the narrow opening. It battered hollowly off the bannister of the stairs and shed ancient paper daisies on the threadbare carpet.

‘I don’t want that thing looking at us,’ Elsie said as they finally made it back to their room.

Will sat Bottom on the dresser and spun him to look out of the window. He tossed his jacket over the thing’s eyes before he took her in his arms.

‘Avert your eyes you filthy ass,’ he said.


	17. Chapter 17

Elsie had experienced nightmares less confusing than the vision with which she was presented now. With each passing hour the Harvest Festival taking place in Sherburn became less familiar and less rooted in reality. What had begun as a relatively tame gathering of local people to examine produce and samples of ale had gradually succumbed to the merriment and unpredictability of lubricated throats and minds.

The drink was flowing, the sun was setting, truth was blurring. All about her costumed figures twirled and heady laughter emanated from behind masks, making strangers doubly strange. She was secure on Charity’s arm but every now and then Will would dip out of her eyeline, passing her bodily mid dance to a nearby fawn or warlock for a turn about the square. He would reappear minutes later, the ridiculous and increasingly grotesquely battered head of an ass popping up between nymphs and elves and corn spirits, long dead kings and out of place Shakespearean merchants.

And yet the uncanny mixture of disguises, the discordant sound of a band of ancient instruments cobbled together on the makeshift stage erected by the inn, the pulsing, thudding heartbeat of it all was as wonderful a thing as Elsie had ever experienced in her sheltered life, and a goodly proportion of that joy could be attributed to seeing Will quite clearly in his element. For a man whose role dictated he should so often be alone and unseen, he thrived on the presence of other people and on being at the heart of all attention. He bloomed with each joke he told or trick he performed for children and adults alike, and Elsie so wished he could remove his mask and be himself, radiant with fun and tall tales and gallantry, handsome and popular and fit for the applause he so deserved, but alas even here in this tiny village her Protector must be careful. Will for all his talent would never be recognised, except by her.

She had barely finished a lap of the square in the clasp of the owner of a ruddily painted mask under which she suspected Sherburn’s butcher lurked, when Bottom reappeared with two brimming flagons of something amber gripped in one hand. The cuff of his strange costume, borrowed from Miss Margaret, a hybrid creation of gentleman’s overcoat and peripheral donkey’s anatomy, represented a hoof, and with his fingers wrapped about the handles of the drinks it truly did appear as though the ass had developed the ability to carry his burdens in a much more human style. The jaw of the paper head had dropped to reveal his shiny and jubilant face within, and his teeth sparkled white as she flew towards him, released from the butcher’s grasp.

With his free hoof Bottom caught her in his arm and then foisted a flagon upon her before she even caught her breath. The ale splattered her bodice and joined a dozen other stains old and new but barely noticeable, so common they had become as part of the dress itself, but no matter for everything tonight was a joy, she had never felt more free, and though she suspected some of her elation came from the drink Will was pouring down her neck at every opportunity, she knew that much of it came from the festival, the people, the traditions and the blessed anonymity of it all.

While Will, undrinking, surveyed the crowd, Elsie brought her tankard to her lips, careful to avoid the long line of Titania’s regal alabaster nose from dipping into the ale. It was a beautiful and ancient mask of delicately cracked porcelain, covering her eyes and falling sleekly over both cheeks while leaving her chin and mouth free. She had painted her lips rich red to balance the mask’s eyebrows, stencilled in rose gold, and its strategically placed beauty spot high on the left cheek. The eyes were almond shaped and the fit deep enough that when she looked into the mirror, she could see nothing of their colour, just their shadow. It made her look as mysterious as she felt. A beautiful magical stranger casting her spell and passing once through the night before she vanished, perhaps forever. There was something as haunting as it was lively about the scene before her and her own role was so transient.

Elsie drank deeply, aware of Will setting down his own full tankard and helpfully sweeping the heavy locks of curling hair from her shoulders and away from her ale. The old-fashioned theatre wig was dyed a glorious red and ringleted to half way down her back. It set off the pale blue and green of her fairy dress beautifully, the hips wide in the style of the last century, but the skirts layered in ethereal laces, one atop the next, atop the next, so that the Queen might seem to be made of spiders silk and dew. It was only an old costume but where a score of stains turned the colour of the silk to patchy blotches, Elsie could see only decoration. The swirls and flecks were flowers in her eyes, precious markers of quickly passing time, of late summer nights long gone but captured always in the fabric, of previous wearers, fairy queens for just a night. Throughout her life one evening had been much like the next and that just past, but this… she never wanted it to end. Let what she felt now dry within the fabric of her bodice if it would, close unto her heart, and stay with her always.

Determined to live each moment, Elsie watched a couple sale past in crimson and in black as Elizabethan courtiers and the band struck up again in a reel. She quickly gulped her flagon dry and grabbed at Charity’s arm as a tidal surge of dancers flocked around them taking places two by two all in a row.

‘Oh… now this may be a little…’ Will started cautiously.

‘Come!’ Elsie laughed, ‘Oh please Will, it’s so much fun!’ and she towed him out as his spare hand closed the ass’s mouth and adjusted his costume for what would be an energetic and chaotic spin. He braced himself, his pose as precise as any which one might find at a formal masquerade and held forth his arms to take her hands. She had trouble focusing upon him, on where he ended and the costume began, on where hands became hooves and his back became a tail. The flowers from the ass’s head had long since scattered on the ground and now just a few sad paper weeds decorated the old mask, the ears floppy and one half off with the vigour of their dancing, and he looked like anything but Charity, but she could still find him by his laugh, and by his voice, and by the sure firm grip of his hands in her own, about her waist. He was hers. Flaws and all. She had never seen a creature more beautiful.

The world flashed by in a mess of colour and of sound, but Charity, no matter which illusion he chose to cast at any moment, was at the centre of it all, as real as ever. While he was there, she was protected and so she let herself fall, into the fun of it all, and the experience and the night, wishing that it would last and last, unsure how her legs would even keep her up a moment longer when all about her swirled and bucked and tipped against the earth and sky. The night grew dark and shadows clumped in every corner of the village, but there within the square, there was light and heat and safety within the throng of humanity. Let it play on, let them all play on.

And briefly in the thick of all the colour, saw the figures in their dark robes as the reel came to an end, and as the next dance began, she saw the profiles of their masks, beaked and cruel, stark against the light of lamps about the square. She saw them bend their heads as one in consultation, watch each other and the dancers in the crowd, the glimmer of the eyes cold behind the disguises that they wore. She saw it but as quickly as she did, she forgot it once again, barely registering her unease as the fiddles screeched and the inhabitants of Sherburn whooped in enthusiasm. More men in costume, that was all, and with a moment’s thought they were long gone from her mind.

She spun in Charity’s arms, felt her weightless journey down the east edge of the square, heard the rhythmic clap of the women sitting out this reel, saw their curious eyes upon both her and Will but there was no harm, in this festival of thanks, in the community who had appeased the spirits in the corn, whose harvest had been bountiful, whose children played in corners and danced with elders in their own pretty costumes. Elsie span past the women and their babies, the men come in from the fields, the labourers and shopkeepers, the man who worked the inn, the fine costumes of the landowners come down from the big house. There could be no danger here where all was warm and golden, and laughter filled the air.

As the village clock struck ten, Charity drew her to a staggering halt and she almost clattered into a table half full of pie. It’s owner, a woman with blue eyes and thick, dark and curly hair, scowled in the donkey’s direction and tidied up her wares.

‘Mr Boldwood!’ Elsie remonstrated loudly, taking her role as wife very seriously indeed. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said to the woman, ‘He’s terribly clumsy sometimes.’

‘Always have been,’ Charity confessed to the floor as he tried to steady himself, ‘Rather accident prone, ever since I was a child… uh… that’s odd, I’m feeling rather… um….’

The woman’s elegant brows knit together, and she kept up her glare, daring the silly man with hooves to be demonstratively ill near her stall when she had half her stock still to sell. He swayed a little and all at once did not seem well at all. Elsie began to feel rather bad for him, they had been having such fun.

‘Are you ill?’ Elsie whispered to him, bending close to his mask.

‘Come over me… rather sudden,’ Will muttered. ‘All at once...’ he broke off and gurgled. Elsie straightened and patted his back while giving the loitering pie woman a confident grin.

‘He’ll be right as rain in a moment, won’t you, my love?’

The woman folded her arms, ‘Too much drink,’ she said.

‘Men folk,’ Elsie quipped in a slightly slurred tone, ‘What can we do about them?’ she hiccoughed. The woman cocked one eyebrow in judgement. Elsie blushed.

‘So sorry, my dear!’ Charity said from below. He was leaning on his knees and tugged the mouth of the mask down so he could focus on the cobbles beneath him. ‘Too much spinning I suspect. I’m getting a bit…’ he broke off and swallowed. Puffed out a breath and shut his eyes. Elsie giggled.

‘Are you dizzy?’ she asked. ‘Was it the reel? Have I made you ill with dancing? And you such a big tough hero…’

‘It’s not the dancing!’ he protested raising a trembling hand, ‘At least… well… maybe there was an excess of rotation… but I can assure you I have experienced much worse… oh Lord,’ he groaned and shut his eyes again. Beneath the mask Elsie detected a sheen of sweat and an unhealthy pallor and felt herself frown. It really was not like Charity to suffer the vapours in quite this way. Gunshots or stab wounds yes, but dizzy spells and queasiness was not his style.

‘Are you going to be sick?’ Elsie asked when he did not straighten up.

The woman behind her tutted. She was perhaps a decade older than Elsie and wore the expression of a long suffering and terribly efficient mother figure. She could have left them to it ten minutes ago but perhaps it gave the village a poor reputation if strangers fell sick at their fesitival and she felt somehow compelled to aid them.

‘Suppose you’ll be wanting water,’ she commented, confirming Elsie’s theory.

‘That would be…’ Will gulped in an effort to control himself. He reached for Elsie’s hand suddenly, ‘Els… Elizabeth!’

‘Appreciated,’ Elsie said quickly with a nervous smile. She kicked his boot, ‘What is the matter with you?’ The woman caught the motion and raised both brows now.

‘I’ll fetch it, but mind no heaving up thy drink upon my wares!’ she said.

‘Course not dear lady,’ Charity’s grip tightened like a vice on Elsie’s hand. She could hear him huffing inside the mask.

‘And you might want to take that ass’s head off your own, you’ll sweat up a storm, ye daft man.’

‘Righto,’ Will managed.

The woman grumbled dramatically and made a great show of going to fetch a jug.

‘Here, take it off,’ Elsie said and reached for Bottom’s head. ‘She’s right! You’ll faint or worse! What on earth has got into you?’ Will continued to hold his knees and refuse to move so she grasped the paper head and wrangled it from him, its bindings half broken with the dancing at any rate, its seams coming apart as the whole thing came loose. Elsie dropped it in a crumby sticky table space between some leaking rhubarb pies. A large blob of syrup extended and dropped below the counter. Will’s eyes followed the motion and then he blanched again and squeezed them shut.

‘Goodness you are pale,’ Elsie said as he reached for her hand again, ‘Are you always such a baby?’ She ran her gloved fingers over his damp curly hair and tried to smooth it back from where it stuck now to his forehead. ‘It’ll pass in a moment I’m sure,’ she said and watched the Pie Woman approaching from the throng. She strode confidently half the distance between them before she seemed to hesitate, the jug clutched to her chest. Her eyes flitted between the couple, resting on Charity for an uncomfortable moment before looking shyly at his ‘wife.’ Elsie smiled her acknowledgement uncertainly.

When at last the woman returned to them, she had no further knowing advice to offer, instead she almost poured the water over Elsie’s outstretched hands in her hurry to pass the jug. She fumbled and gave an apology, her eyes resting on Will’s profile as he breathed slow and steady, still hunched upon his knees, and her skin as white as his.

‘Thank you,’ Elsie said, ‘You aren’t taken ill too are you?’

‘What? Oh... no…’ she wrung her hands self-consciously before she tucked them into her apron. ‘Have you both come far?’ she asked quietly, ‘Your faces are… aren’t from these parts.’

‘Newlywed!’ Will said automatically ‘On our honeymoon!’ He did not look up. The woman seemed to blanch even paler.

‘Oh… I see. Congratulations,’ she said in a curious tone. ‘And will you stay with us long?’

Elsie glanced at her and at the strange expression she wore. There was a painful hope in her voice that had no right to belong to her, a stranger.

‘No, no, on our way at dawn, lovely meeting you but we must keep moving…’ Charity blindly reached up for the jug and took an unsteady swig. He pressed his cuff to his mouth and paused. Elsie began to rub slow circles on his back gently, aware all the while of that stranger’s gaze and of something else unnamed. ‘Thank you, my dear,’ he murmured, half in half out of character. The sweat was drying on his face now, the first of his colour returning. ‘Please don’t let us keep you from the party,’ he added.

‘Yes, you’ve been very kind,’ Elsie said. ‘But please don’t let us keep you.’ She resumed her slow massage between Charity’s shoulders as he slowly straightened. She felt more than saw the woman step away a little as though she wished the crowd behind her to swallow her whole.

‘Well, you mind how you go then, Will, and be safe,’ she said softly, the shortened version of his name comfortable in her mouth and yet not one she had heard Elsie use. ‘You never were much use at staying safe…’

‘Wait. What did you...?’ Elsie turned to ask the question, but the woman was gone.


	18. Chapter 18

She stared into the crowd but could not spot her, the woman with blue eyes and dark and curly hair. After a moment Elsie turned back to Charity, shook his arm.

‘Will did you hear…?’ Elsie said urgently. ‘That woman I think she knows you!’

‘Hmm… what? Nonsense I just have one of those faces. I look like everyone and no-one all at once. It is one of my primary skills, happens all the time, I’m sure she is no-one in particular.’

‘Well she knew your name.’

‘Eh?’

‘Called you Will!’

‘ _William_ Boldwood, remember. ‘tis the name I used at the inn.’

‘Oh well…’ she almost conceded, ‘No, wait, this was different! She didn’t call you William, but _Will_.’

‘Probably a little tipsy. It’s a party! No need for formalities.’ Will was upright now and finally tried to open his eyes fully, frown lines tight between them. ‘Ugh,’ he said.

‘She was sober as a judge, Will.’

‘You are overthinking it.’

‘But she said you were ‘no use at being safe,’’

‘Well you’re the one telling her I’m a clumsy ass.’

‘You agreed!’

‘Well there you have it, that must be it. She knows I am a clumsy ass, mystery solved.’

‘I suppose we did mention it but… the look on her face I swear I think she recognised you.’

‘I didn’t recognise her,’ he said.

‘You didn’t look at her you were too busy belching!’

He made a most undignified noise beside her. ‘Pardon me,’ he squeezed out.

The ale still in her bloodstream, and the woman out of sight, suddenly everything was amusing her again. Elsie laughed heartily.

‘Oh, dear are you still bilious?’ Elsie said and snorted as he nodded sadly, glancing at her with big round pretty eyes. Elsie sighed at the ease with which he appealed to her and steered him clear of the table, and the heat and noise, and down a cool alley off the square. He negotiated another deep swig of his water and then she propped him against the wall. ‘Here take some air.’

Will lent against the stone and loosened his cravat. ‘It’s easing,’ he said, ‘It’s the strangest thing.’

‘You should have said if you felt queer,’ Elsie chided.

‘I didn’t feel queer, I…’ he supressed another belch, ‘It came over me suddenly.’

‘One too many ales I’d wager,’ Elsie said.

‘No more than you. Far less in fact. Some of us were keeping an eye out for safety’s sake.’

‘Nonsense. You were drinking, Will. And dancing. And acting the fool.’

‘ _Acting,_ yes. And I think you’ll find the gutter got most of my ale,’ he winked.

‘What!?’

‘Well I had a few,’ he admitted, ‘But my point is…’

‘Your point is…’

‘I’m not nearly as inebriated as you, young lady.’

‘I don’t seem to be unwell, though, do I,’ she teased.

‘You aren’t wearing a donkey head and a ruddy tail, bloody warm in here, enough to make any chap feel ropey. Smells a bit off too,’ Will gingerly held his stomach and then without warning slid down the wall landing on his backside with both legs stuck out before him. He moaned.

‘Will, you can’t sit there!’

‘Why not, it’s perfectly comfortable,’ he said perfectly uncomfortably.

‘The menfolk have probably been using this alley as a privy half the night!’

‘I haven’t!’

‘I should hope not but…’ she gestured around them, ‘Just don’t blame me if it soaks your breeches.’

Will wrinkled his nose, ‘Lord, woman, must you…’ but he patted the ground about him until he was satisfied that it was dry. ‘Look, just give me a moment I’m starting to feel better.’

‘Good, because I want another dance.’

‘What? You’re insatiable.’

She kicked his boot again, ‘Yes, I am.’

‘Excuse me!’

‘Come on, up now! You’ll catch your death on those cobbles. Or injure something vital.’

Will looked up at her in mock outrage, ‘A moment!’ he protested. ‘Allow a gentleman to recover, will you?’

‘The gentleman says he isn’t drunk, up you get and prove it,’

‘Don’t challenge me, my dear.’

‘Who is your queen?’ Elsie said abruptly in cultured tones, hands on hips and bosom pushed forth. Will’s face cracked into amusement. ‘Come on, who? Who is she?’

‘You are,’ he tittered.

‘Well then, do as I command,’ she held out her gloved hand, the horrible costume jewellery she had acquired to go with her tattered gown glinting in the subdued light. Will reached up and heaved himself to her side with a small stagger. Elsie shoved him. Somewhere close a fiddle started.

‘Come on,’ she grinned, ‘I think that might be a gavotte beginning!’

‘A gavotte,’ he said. ‘The last time I had to do one of those I got myself into all sorts of unexpected trouble…’

‘But it looks so much fun!’ Elsie peered down the alleyway at the glimpses of conjoined bodies prancing in the square.

‘I must admit some parts were very enjoyable indeed,’ Will said brushing down his jacket. ‘Let me just retrieve my head.’

‘Oh, leave it, it will only make you ill if you put it back on.’

‘My dear girl, I can’t go out there in public without a mask, we spoke about this and what’s more you agreed.’

‘The night is nearly done, Will, and nothing untoward has happened all day, besides Bottom has seen better days.’

‘You still have _your_ mask I see.’ Will remarked approaching her with purpose and bumping her up against the wall.

‘Mine is obviously of a better quality,’ Elsie argued.

‘Mmm,’ Will reached around her wig to find the satin ties. ‘Why aren’t you being a rude little filly this night? I feel an overwhelming need to check it is still Elsie Fitzjames under there and not some other demanding wench whose shameful longing to dance upon my arm has led her to forcibly take your place.’

‘Must everything be a conspiracy to you, Will?’ she laughed but felt herself grow hot at his proximity.

‘Perhaps it is a spell and Elsie has been replaced with a lusty nymph who craves my touch,’ he speculated. She felt the bow come undone slowly, saw him rest his fingers at her temples.

‘Captain Charity, we shall miss the gavotte!’

‘We can ask for another… now hush,’ the mask slipped away and she saw his eyes twinkle as they took in her true features. ‘Why, hello under there,’ he said and wedged a thigh between her legs. ‘Seems to be you after all, what a relief.’

‘Why hello, Bottom, are you feeling better?’

‘Quite, thank you. The vapour has passed. As you know you have a remarkable healing effect on me,’ he whispered close to her ear. ‘Allow me to demonstrate my rekindled virility.’

Will pushed hard against her briefly before taking her lips in his own. Elsie felt herself sag into his body, her arms about his neck and the strength of his thigh holding her as he rocked gently into her pelvis. She drew one leg up and he clasped her buttock, took her weight, angled her against the stone. A fast heat spread from her neck and chest, deep under her petticoats and forced her to bunch them up needily within one fist. Will took the cue and slid a hand under her skirts, toying with the material, before his palm brushed hotly over the inside of her thigh. She tore her lips away and gasped against his neck, tried to urge him closer to her centre. All about her felt warm and fuzzed and opaque, a pleasant freeing floating calm induced by drink. She wanted him and could not care less who might see.

‘Will… please.’

‘In an alley… that’s not very regal is it?’ he said and then laughed as she huffed in response. He kissed her again more deeply and this time lifted her whole body against the wall until her legs could wrap about his hips. She felt the press of something hard under her gathered skirts and reached down to palm him purposefully through his breeches, but he knocked her hand away. She kissed more deeply, moaned into his throat with need, until Will grunted against her tongue and pinned her with his weight while he fumbled one hand to free himself.

‘Now who is impatient,’ she commented.

Will glanced over his shoulder down the alley and then returned to the job in hand.

‘We must be quick,’ he said lowly. Elsie made an exaggerated face of understanding and he giggled. ‘You are a terrible influence young lady, allow me to…’ he had just set her in position when he stopped, eyes on the amulet about her neck.

‘Will?’

He glanced up at her face with a worried expression. ‘Elsie?’

‘What?’

And then she felt it. The heat about her throat, the burn that was no longer pleasurable and a second later the light followed, bathing both their faces, bright from the Red Sun and hazed from the Red Moon beneath his shirt. Will dropped her and suddenly backed away, tucking himself into his breeches and fastening his clothes. Elsie scrambled to fix her skirts.

‘Will what is it?’

‘I was hoping you would tell me,’ his eyes were on the square beyond the alley.

‘Tell you what?’

‘Don’t you sense something?’ he asked quickly, ‘Because that thing sure as hell does, look at it, Christ it’s going to bring them straight here!’

‘Them, who is _them_?’

‘ _Them._ Our pursuers! Why else would it shine that way?’

‘For goodness sake, it has done it before when we have been close together… oh!’

The light was growing brighter. But this was not the pretty halo of their first night intimacy. This light said danger. It was same glow she had seen weeks before when she had left Will drugged in the cottage to set out on her own. The light that had grown stronger and stronger when a group of men had threatened her chastity, when they had meant to hurt her, and the curse had activated. It had killed the rogues outright and she and Will both had been forced to flee the scene.

‘You think they are close?’ Elsie asked frantically, ‘Adato? His men?’

‘Him? Possibly, his minions, more like,’ Will said fumbling under the waistcoat of his costume, ‘It doesn’t matter who, they mean you harm! Dammit!’

Elsie looked about, suddenly aware that every detail of the walls and path about them was clear, as if daylight fell from the sky.

‘But there has been no-one, we have been safe all evening, just the villagers in costume and their guests out in the square…’ Elsie looked past him to the festival and her throat grew tight. Their guests. Not all of them invited perhaps. Not all of them befitting of the scene. So many merry costumes had they seen in the course of the day, but looking back some figures were altogether darker. She had ignored them before.

Her eyes found them too easily now.

‘Will…’ she whispered. ‘Will, look.’

He turned, looked out into the square and at that moment the sea of dancers parted suddenly in horror, coloured costumes like the curtains of a stage, the players frozen still in time and at the centre, in a spotlight cast by magic stood the figures in black robes. Two, three, four. Their bodies merging darkly into one beneath the glare of the Red Sun, their pale masks floating above. They turned their beaked heads eastward as white as death and looked straight at her and Charity.

Will reached for her and she gripped him, while his free hand took the pistol from his belt. Illusion, the whole night an illusion, she had never been safe at all and Will had been right all along. She had drawn their enemies closer with bright lights and music. Strangers wearing masks, discorporated voices. A false and dangerous world. And he had warned her, tried to stop her then conceded for her happiness. Why had she not listened?

All the while that she had danced carefree, Will had been sober, armed and ready. Always ready, always watching, and always at her side. Always the Protector. Just as he was always cursed. The two of them bound together and drawing evil to them in pursuit of power. She ahd drawn them to them, drawn them to Will and now he would place himself in their path to save her.

The figures cocked their heads and she could have sworn that they smiled at her thoughts. Her dance was over.

The Red Sun rose and pulsed once, hard at Elsie’s neck. The alley seemed to shimmer. Like a breeze its power travelled from their hiding place, ruffling banners and bunting, catching in the costumes of the frozen villagers. It circled the still and silent festival before finally it swept about the feet of the dark figures, who calmly stood and watched it tangle in their robes, before they raised their faces once again. One of them started to laugh and another, pulled a staff from its robes, its head an emerald jewel in the gold jaws of a snake. It pulsed with a slick green light against the protective halo of the Sun.

The pistol flew from Charity’s hand with a crack and he flinched back. Burning, she smelt burning.

‘Will!’

Injured arm against his belly he drew himself to his full height and brought her to him, tucked her close behind his back to shield her. The Red Sun’s glow about them grew brighter by the moment but it seemed to shake in the wake of an oncoming serpent’s curse. Elsie felt a clawing pain in every muscle, a burning like poison as the gentle trickle of the serpent’s light penetrated their shield, mapped out their bodies with sultry curiosity, crawling over hands and faces, savouring their skin. Elsie wanted to run and then she realised that she could not. She could not move, transfixed by something unseen, her shimmering protection fading under the force of evil magic. The figures in robes moved closer, and yet seemed in no hurry, as though they knew the game was already won.

‘Will… Will… what do we do, who are they? What is that thing, that weapon?!’

She could feel the slightest tremble in his back but he stood firm.

‘We should never have stayed,’ he said lowly, ‘I’m sorry… I should have insisted… I should have…’ he took a breath and steeled himself again, as frozen to the spot as her. ‘We can’t escape them Elsie, I can’t move and I… I don’t believe these chaps are fully human anymore.’ He smiled nervously as he watched them approached, ever cavalier.

Closer still, drifting like smoke over the motionless square and on hearing his words Elsie was suddenly certain that even if Will could reach again his pistol it would do no damage, that nothing would get in the figures’ way. Not Charity, not magic, not any of the innocents dotted about the square. Oh God, the villagers.

‘Will, there are children here… families… what if they hurt them too? How do we…?’

‘Stop them?’ he asked, his voice a pitchy tone, ‘Any ideas are greatly appreciated,’ he glanced about him briefly, ‘I’m not coming up with much so far… little bit out of my league these fellows.’

‘For God’s sake Will if they are out of your league, whose league are they in?’ she snapped.

‘That’s not very supportive of you Elsie,’ he muttered. ‘Doing my best here…’

The shrouded figures had stopped. The emerald of the staff glowing more brightly, a cold heat touching them like ice where it landed on bare skin. Mere yards away now, the silver work in the white masks visible so close, the ornate fretwork framing black sockets lending something beautiful but lifeless to their empty faces.

Serpents, and poisonous flowers. Elsie spotted nightshade carved in pewter wrapped over pointed cheekbones. The figure at the front who carried the staff raised its arms in a welcoming embrace. Inside her mind Elsie heard screaming as clearly as she had heard that evening’s music.

And from out of the unmoving spell-entranced crowd a tiny figure raced forward, knotted auburn hair beneath its mask, and a corn dolly tight in its fist. It dove straight between the figures and for a moment the black robes tried to wrap about its legs as it fled onwards, but they recoiled in revulsion at something pure and good. The little girl barrelled into the alleyway, tiny hands grasping for Will’s coat and Elsie’s skirts and her voice coming shrill and clear and achingly familiar. At once the tendrils of magic which held Elsie to the ground seemed to give way.

‘Run! Run! You have to run! The Sun can’t save you now!’

Elsie grabbed the struggling child by the shoulder and tore back her mask.

‘Alexandra?!’

Frantic tear stained eyes of brilliant blue stared back.

‘Hurry!’ the girl cried desperately and turned to Charity for help, ‘The Amulet can’t save you, but we can! We can!’


	19. Chapter 19

Will staggered against her as she pulled, his eyes still fixed on their unearthly pursuers, his shoulder colliding with hers as she tried to move him, and Alexandra tugging at her other hand trying to make for the far end of the alley, and whatever lay beyond hidden in darkness.

‘Will!’ Elsie cried.

‘So sorry,’ he said vaguely and looked down at his burnt arm. ‘Um..’ he frowned and inspected it as though he had never seen his own fingers. He appeared a little drunk again, but had seemed himself moments before.

‘Will what is wrong with you?’

He blinked and swayed.

‘Come on!’ the girl cried.

Charity looked up at Elsie at last with glazed eyes. ‘I… where are we?’ he asked, confounded.

Elsie looked behind him, at the figures now crowding the opening to the square, their robes spread to obliterate their passage, the village beyond hidden. They had moved so suddenly, closing one end of the alley off completely and hiding their actions from the frozen spell locked villagers.

‘Run!’ Alexandra was screaming behind her, and all around the halo of the Red Sun was fading, a creeping blackness overtaking the last of its light and the green tendrils of the serpent staff twisting through the air. ‘Run please!’ the child wrenched her hand so hard she thought it might come from her socket. ‘ _Please!_ ’

Will took a step towards the robed figures, a vacant expression on his slack face.

‘Will!’ Elsie let go his hand and put both arms about his waist, Alexandra gripping onto his arm. Above the fluttering robes of their ghastly enemies, the white and silver masks seemed to bend like flesh into eerie smiles and Elsie realised something awful as the distance between them closed.

‘Those aren’t masks,’ she whispered, her eyes tracking down the thin white necks that vanished beneath the robes. Bones. Creatures made of leering knotted bones.

‘Hello, gentlemen,’ Will said pleasantly, ‘Have we met before?’ The first of the things broke away from its companions and began to drift down the alley towards him.

Elsie pulled with all her weight and strength, she shoved Will as he stumbled, and he tripped forward a few steps out of reach of the creature. She and the girl took an arm each and propelled him away from the shadows and along the passage, the last of the Red Sun’s light quite gone now and the Amulet growing heavy and cold about her neck. Will’s seemed dead entirely, its power cut from its source.

They pelted down the cobbles, the alleyway growing narrow and their limbs colliding with rough stone wall as they forced Will before them, twisting in their grip as he tried to look behind him with bemused curiosity at the things that now followed, drifting like mist along the way.

‘Where are you taking us?’ Elsie panted to Alexandra.

‘Keep moving!’ the girl’s voice was shrill with panic but she knew her path even in darkness. They rounded a corner and seemed to plunge down at an angle, something unclear flashing overhead as they moved, branches or beams, the stars flitting between and then a bursting freshness, the night air cold. Suddenly the moon, the harvest moon, high and red and full on the horizon. Light again, though very little, but it was enough by which to see that they were outside the village perimeter and somewhere in the fields beyond. She realised that patches of white in spotty clusters were sheep dozing in the meadows, that dark lines were hedgerows, peppered with trees. Alexandra led them quickly to a gap between low stone walls, and they landed hard in a ditch before they were climbing. The hill grew steeper, trees and hedges fell away, a smooth dome of land extended above them bathed in crimson blood moonlight.

‘Where are we?’ Elsie asked again. Will was fighting less but she still had to steer him forward, he tripped upon the uneven ground and laughed like a drunkard as she caught him. In the moment it took to steady him she saw the things emerge from the dark village behind, their grotesque faces cast red in the glow of the moon. Their eyes caught the movement on the hill and they drifted at leisure in Elsie’s wake.

But they could still travel faster than her, unimpeded up the slope. They could close that gap in moments. 

‘Hurry!’ the girl cried sensing they would catch them. She pointed high upon the hill, ‘There!’

What option did she have; Elsie tightened her grip on Will’s waist and pushed him forward, her flimsy costume shoes slipping in the dew covered grass. A glance at him in the strange light told her something was very, very wrong, his face quite lost and empty, but wet with sweat, and his usually expressive eyes pale. His bad arm was still held tight against him and she saw for the first time that the sleeve was completely burned away, the skin below black in the moonlight. He was unarmed confused and helpless and it was up to Elsie to save him now; Alexandra had let go and was climbing fast up the hill.

‘Mother! _Mother_!’

A coil of magic whipped out from their pursuer but failed to make contact. Elsie ducked instinctively and Will let out a grunt beside her as though he had been winded. He grasped at her and she almost fell from the weight of him heavy at her side. He seemed to swoon then shut his eyes, dropping hard to one knee amongst the hummocks and mounds. Slumped against her hip, she tried to drag him up with her hands under his arms. The strand whipped forward again above their heads, sprinkling them with shards of green enchantment, Elsie felt them in each breath she drew, like shattered glass cutting at her throat.

‘Mother! They are behind us! Mother, quickly!’

There was a quality of fear to the child’s voice which Elsie had never heard before and it drove her forward. She shook Will hard and his eyes fluttered open for a second, his head tipping back. She slapped him and he blinked. For the briefest moment he seemed to focus.

‘Get up!’ she barked at him, her eyes flicking from him to the easy progress of the figures on the hill, a spiral of green magic above them, tendrils testing the air like a dozen serpents' tongues. ‘ _Get up_!’

He managed to get his footing but within a few feet he was crashing again to the ground, dazed and unresponsive. Wisps of evil magic hovered like a cage about the pair, weaving and interlocking, tightening around them. Elsie gripped him to her and felt tears come to her eyes. The night had been warm and now it was cold. Where there had been light, now there was darkness, and slow relentless ooze of burning poison, touching her face and arms, seeping slowly into her skin. It seemed to whisper then to scream inside her mind and her heart pounded at its words.

_Come to us._

_Come to us Elsie. He cannot save you now._

Around the cage of woven magic the figures circled and came to a halt before them. Their white faces leaned closer and peered through the flickering bars. She felt the icy breath of one tickle her face like frost, saw long slim fingers made of bone reach towards her. Will slumped further at her feet, all power going from him and she was dragged down with him. She tried to shield him but the creatures’ reach was long. She saw their fingers curl about his neck but when she tried to beat them back her hands sliced through empty air that seemed to cut her skin.

Will sprawled on the ground, his head in her lap, while she tried to fight the spirits; her fairy robes soaking up the mud and her hands slipping in the grass. Elsie sobbed helplessly, the pain ratcheting through her body as the poison took her.

From nowhere, the twisted face of her pursuer split open with triumph mere inches from her own. So close she could see the glimmer where its eyes should be. She could not even scream.

_Come._

‘Be gone, daemon!’

There was a crack behind her and Elsie struggled to see beyond the brilliance which fell upon the hill. As though the sun had risen twelve hours before her time, every detail of day was visible. The sky shone clear as sunrise and then the brightness receded just enough to see its source. At the summit of the hill there was a building, an ancient thing built into the turf, old carvings half obscured with foliage and with time, and standing at the centre of the its circular entrance there was a woman.

She held aloft an orb as bright as the Red Moon above, as bright as The Red Sun’s former glory, and from it Elsie recognised the winds of power which always accompanied her own magic. They circled the woman’s figure, catching in her simple skirts and in the dark curls of her hair.

The ungodly clamour in Elsie’s mind peaked and vanished. The figures stepped back. The bars of her cage seemed to flicker.

‘You have no power in this place,’ the woman called.

The creatures hissed, the tendrils striking out like adders then recoiling fast. Elsie felt the warm light from the orb cover her and Will, looked down into his pale face as he lay upon his back, his eyes too pale and desperately trying to focus. He took a shuddering breath, alive but barely.

‘You have no power!’ the woman repeated, and the light pulsed sharp across the meadow, the things flinching backwards into shadow. ‘Know this to be is sacred ground, in the name of the old gods. These are their children and you cannot touch them!’ A high wind begun and Elsie could see that Alexandra was with the woman too, tucked in against her skirts. She was reaching for the orb, adding what power she could. Magic, from both mother and child.

‘Elsie…’ Will said, his voice weak and his eyes flickering in and out of focus ‘They… they have me…’

‘No!’

‘I can hear them... inside. I failed you… ’

‘No! Fight them Will!’ she looked towards the entry of the ancient building somehow sure that if she could just get him inside he would be safe. She sat him up as far as she could.

‘We have to move! _Move_ Will! Do as I say!’

He rolled from her arms a dead weight but then he started crawling, his movements stalled by some unseen force but headed for the summit slow and sure. She caught him fast and levered him up, putting everything she could into propelling him up the slope, past Alexandra and her mother, the weight of him double what she remembered as though he pulled a load behind him like a beast. Green ropes of magic bound anout his chest and arms. They flickered in and out of existence as she watched. Will struggled and fell, the strands tighetning about his biceps and his ribcage. 

‘Release him!’ the woman called to the creatures, ‘Release him or thou shalt burn in the light of the old ones upon whose ground you do not dare to tread! Tread upon it now, foul and blasphenous fiends!’ There was a flash and the orb struck out at the creatures, until then suspended above the earth. Elsie saw them fall shapeless to the ground then rear upwards with a soul curdling scream she could hear only in her head. Consecrated ground. Not a Christian church but something older. ‘Release him!’ the woman ordered again and sent forth another flame of power.

The tendrils faded but did not vanish entirely. Will’s weight became just a little less, but it was enough to get him moving and Elsie saw the woman begin to retreat with her towards the doorway, walking backwards with one hand on her daughter and the other maintaining the orb. This close Elsie could hear the ragged staccato of her panicked breathing and the whimpers Alexandra made at her side. She could see the ordinary apron tied about the woman's waist, the flour stains on her skirts, the blue of her eyes. She knew her from somewhere, she knew her.

Her back bumped against the side of the dome.

Elsie heaved Will in through the old stone archway and he fell against the wall. Outside the brilliance of the moon was fading as suddenly as it had begun, the orb vanished and woman fled within the building hurrying Alexandra before her.

‘The door!’ she shouted and Elsie dived upon it with her, securing it with a bang and pulling down the huge beam at its rear to form a barricade.

‘Those things, they aren’t human!’ Elsie said quickly.

‘Obviously,’ the woman snapped and drove a barrel behind the bolted door before running to fetch another.

‘The walls cannot stop them!’ Elsie said desperately.

‘These walls can,’ the woman said positioning a third barrel, ‘These walls…’ and she held up her hands between which a red light shone brightly, ‘And this!’ she flung the light upon the door, upon the barrels, upon the bolts. It seared into the wood like gunpowder newly lit. ‘Get back!’

She grabbed Elsie and pushed her down next to Will as she dived from the door. There was an explosion and the stone beneath them shook hard with it. Elsie looked up quickly, at the rich red circular shape of the now enchanted door, at the flame like wisps of the spell that flickered outwards like the sun, at the strange markings on the barrels and the beams which held it physically in place.

‘What…?’ Elsie started.

‘I’ve set a ward.’

‘And it will keep them out?’

‘Now that you are here... yes…’ she said obscurely and directed her attention back to her daughter. ‘Sandra?’

‘I’m all right,’ the girl swiped muddy marks across her face as she struggled to get the hair out of her eyes. ‘I’m all right!’ she batted her mother’s hands away. ‘What about him!?’

The woman turned and watched as Elsie bent over Will, his face still pale and clammy and his eyes colourless.

‘Will?’ Elsie touched his cheek then looked down at his arm. In the dim light of the strange domed building it looked like no burn she had ever tended; though the skin was blackened to his elbow, and the sleeve of his costume and shirt quite destroyed, the damaged edges of both flesh and cloth seemed to glow with a firefly’s eerie light.

‘Bring him into the Hall,’ the woman said opening a heavy oak door behind her, ‘I will tend to it.’

‘I can do it,’ Elsie said quickly, ‘I’m a healer.’

The woman rounded on her suddenly with the faintest edge of malice. ‘I am aware of what you are,’ she said coldly, ‘You are the reason he is injured at all, the reason those things enchanted him; you are the reason he does not recognise his own blood… but you are in the Hall of the Dead now and as Priestess I command that you will do as I say.’ She pushed the door further so that Elsie might see the crypt beyond, the alter ahead, the candles that burned and the lines marked upon the floor. ‘I am mistress here, even in your presence.’

‘What is this place?’ Elsie said.

‘Don’t you know, did no-one ever show you the places where the dead are guarded?’

‘I…’

‘Protected,’ the woman said, ‘So sheltered. You have no idea have you, who you really are? Where you came from? You’ve no idea who _he_ is?’

‘Will? He…’

‘Who is he really?’ the woman said, ‘Has he ever spoken of it? His past? Of his destined future?’

‘S-some of it,’ she stumbled. ‘He…’

Elsie looked back at Will who was muttering under his breath. He scrabbled to his feet and began examining the wall before him intently, holding a quiet conversation with himself as he did so, his face pinched in concentration and confusion both. His fingertips mapped the surface, nails dragging at the rough-hewn stone until they caught and tore. He did not even flinch. From nowhere Alexandra slowly approached his side and tried to take his hand. He paused and looked down at her unseeing.

‘I can help him,’ the woman said catching Elsie’s terrified look.

‘What’s wrong with him?’

‘An enchantment, its source may be the weapon that inflicted the burn, see how it glows? Or it may be something else entirely. I believe he may have been affected longer…’

‘He was unwell this evening but he…’

‘’I know,’ the woman said, ‘I was there, don’t you remember? A strange and sudden illness, a confusion and nausea? Like a poison. He is not a drunkard. William would never neglect his duty to you or the Red Sun by adling his mind with ale, but magic, magic would explain it all.’

The woman with the stall. The woman who had fetched the water. The woman who had accused him of commonplace drunkenness until she had seen Will’s face and blanched, wishing him safety, taking her leave quietly and quickly. To do what? Light candles in preparation in her crypt? Send her daughter to their rescue? What significance had Will to her to place herself so quickly in danger for his rescue?

‘You do know him, don’t you,’ Elsie said, ‘And the way you talk, it’s different from how it was in town. You are no pie maker! Who are you? _What_ are you? Who is he to you? What do you know of the Red Sun and his duty?’

The woman ignored her questions and motioned Alexandra away from Will. The girl went obediently enough but before she left him withdrew another corn dolly from her skirt pocket and tucked it gently next to his pocket watch. It peeked out over his injured arm.

‘Spirit will protect him,’ she said quietly.

Elsie looked back towards the crypt. Corn dollies. The Hall of the Dead. What in God’s name had she got into? The one person who might be able to tell her was entranced and unreachable; beside her Will was growing agitated.

‘Still out there… coming for us… the Protected… coming for the Protected, I can feel them, inside, inside…’ he pressed his good hand to his brow and rubbed too hard, his teeth clenched, ‘Who… can’t think… don’t…’ he smacked his hand hard off the stone wall. ‘Think. Think! What do I do…?’

‘Let me calm him at least,’ the woman said a look of genuine worry on her face. ‘To let him rave is cruel. Has he not suffered enough for your cause?’

‘Why should I trust you?’

‘What option do your really have? You’ve lost your Protector, I’m the next best thing.’

‘How do you know about the Protector? What is this?’ Elsie felt hysteria taint her voice.

Will lurched suddenly away from the way and into the body of the corridor which ran about the central chamber of the strange domed building. He looked for all the world as though something had given chase to him.

‘Hurry,’ he said, ‘seizing Elsie by her arm and pulling her to him roughly, ‘They’ll be here… they…’

‘Will, you’re hurting me!’

His face was frantic, ‘We have to go, now… they’re coming… they’re….’ he turned to the woman beside him, ‘Help us! Please help us! Can you help us? You can help us, can’t you? You know... you know!’

‘Sleep now,’ the woman said laying a soothing hand on his shoulder. She stepped about him until she faced him full on and with her free palm guided his face so that he looked back into her eyes. ‘Sleep for me, Will,’ she said softly. Elsie saw the flicker of memory somewhere deep behind his pale enchanted eyes. ‘You can do that for me, can’t you, Will? You remember me…you remember my face.’

‘I…’ his eyes widened just a little. Elsie heard his breath hitch.

‘Lydia?’ he asked, vulnerable and small.

‘Yes, love, hush now, we can talk later,’ and she began to speak in a low mumble using words Elsie could not follow.

‘Lydia,’ Will repeated as the spell continued and let out a tiny painful laugh closer to a sob than any sign of joy. Frightened of what was occurring Elsie stepped forward to intervene, but Alexandra tugged her back. She looked up at her solemnly and shook her tousled head.

‘You can trust my mother,’ she said. ‘She’s helping, look.’

Sure enough the tension was leaving his face and frame, his shoulders sagging. The lines about his eyes creased in relief and he reached tentatively for Lydia’s waist to embrace her. She took a hold of his hand and held it to her hip, stroking over the back of it with a thumb as she whispered her enchantments in an unknown tongue.

At last the palm of Lydia’s hand glowed gently against his cheek and he closed his eyes and sighed, allowing himself to be folded carefully into her arms. She cradled him for a moment her fingers in his curly hair, and her lips pressed to his forehead, before taking his hand like a sleepwalking child and leading him into the crypt chamber.

‘Let’s lay you down to sleep, come follow me,’ Lydia said stopping by a pillar. Behind it was a little living area, a pot upon a fire, a straw bed. She sat him down on the mattress and ran her thumbs over his cheekbones as she held his face. Her eyes were wet as she examined his features, the high arch of his brows and the long lashes of his closed eyes. ‘I expected more scars,’ she said almost to herself, ‘But you are as pretty as ever. My handsome hero, Will... always so very, very vain.’ Elsie felt a lurch of envy in her chest as Will’s smile in resppnse to her knowing tease crossed his sleeping features softly.

‘Am I dreaming?’ he asked sadly, voice small. ‘Sometimes I dream of you, Lydia.’

Elsie’s throat grew tight and painful. There was affection his voice which could not be mistaken.

‘Does it feel like a dream?’ Lydia asked him, kneeling at his feet.

‘I know it can’t be real, I haven’t seen you in so long,’ Will said, a tear tracking down his cheek and shining in the last of the golden light from her hands. ‘I have missed you. I’ve missed you so much. I’m so sorry that I ever left but I couldn’t…’ his voice trailed off and his lips quivered. Elsie's heart ached for him.

‘Shh,’ Lydia said, ‘I know.’

‘Forgive me.’

‘There is nothing to forgive. Hush.’

He sat still upon the bed, his blackened arm still pressed against his chest and a sickness clearly in him, but he had ceased to fight, comforted by Lydia’s words and by her presence in a way he had not been comforted by Elsie. Lydia watched him carefully for another long moment before turning to her daughter.

‘Help me to get him settled, Sandra,’ she said.

‘I can help,’ Elsie said curtly, deaperate to reconnect to the man she loved.

‘I did not ask you,’ the woman looked up at her from under her curled fringe. ‘I can manage.’

‘I insist.’

‘As do I, sit down by the fire and let me work.’

‘I will not leave him alone with a stranger!’

‘I am no stranger,’ Lydia snapped. She straightened and looked down at Elsie with a bristling defiance. ‘And you would do well to trust me, given how badly you both need my help, given how little I wish to aid _you_ with any of it. I should have let them take you and kept Will safe alone!’

‘I knew it!’ Elsie cried, the bitter seeds of envy rupturing within her. ‘He means something to you and want him for yourself! You loved him in the past, the way you speak with him, the way you… you _touch_ him! You are tender with him… far to tender! What were you once, a lover? A jilted girl?’

Lydia almost bent double laughing, ‘Oh, oh… such a wild imagination from such a sheltered woman!’

‘Who are you to him then?’ Elsie challenged, lunging forward, ‘You seem to know so much about me, who are you to Will?’

‘Please stop fighting!’ Alexandra cried suddenly. ‘He is sick! Mother, please, those things have hurt him, you both have magics that can help him, why are you arguing this way…you’re on the same side!’

‘Are we?’ Elsie said sharply to Lydia, ‘Are we on the same side?’ She watched as Lydia chewed her lip thoughtfully.

‘In terms of magic… Yes, we serve the same Gods. But as women…’

‘If you care for him as you claim…’ Elsie said.

‘Oh! I care for him a great deal more than you ever will.’

‘I love him!’

‘And I loved him long before you were even born! You took him from me, you took him from me and from Alexandra, and from Hannah and her boys, you took him from our father, and he didn’t even get a choice. _We_ didn’t get a choice!’

‘Mother!’ Alexandra wailed sadly. ‘Please don’t cry!’

‘He promised he’d come back, that he would find us, but he couldn’t because of the war, because of his job, but most of all because of you. Even soldiers and secret agents get to come home, but not him. All these years he has been forced to live only for you, out of duty, out of diligence, sacrificing everything dear in his life, every chance at happiness, well it isn’t right, it isn’t fair; he is your guardian, but he loved _us._ We loved him and you took him from us!’

Lydia turned from Elsie, distraught, cheeks wet, and stood to one side of where Will sat motionless and pale upon the cot. Hands on her hips she battled to stifle the sob her voice threatened to betray. The light from the fire caught her face as she bent her head. The curls on her forehead and the perfect line of her nose. Elsie looked back at Will. Their profiles were the same.

‘Your hero, you called him your hero…before…’ Elsie said, certain now of Lydia’s connection to Charity.

‘Isn’t that what big brothers are to us when we are little girls?’ Lydia said softly and swiped at her face with her sleeve in exactly the same way Will did when he was awkward and vulnerable, ‘So that is how he stayed to me. I haven’t seen him in twenty-five years, I was just a tiny girl when he last saw me, but that feeling does not change. Blood is always thicker than water, stronger even than legend and magic. He might be your Protector now, Elsie Fitzjames, but he was my hero long before that. A knight with a wooden sword and a hobbyhorse fighting for the captured princess. It used to be I who he protected.’ She smiled to herself fondly, teeth startlingly white and neat and familiar. Oh but it was so clear to see now that she looked without a jealous eye.

‘Your brother,' Elsie said. 'Until his calling separated you.'

Lydia nodded, lips pressing together to stem her tears. 'I have searched and I have waited every hour of every slow day for news of him, of his inevitable passing for your protection,' she said painfully. 'When I saw his face tonight... I never thought... I never allowed myself to believe...' she stopped, her chest heaving. 'Will...' she managed. 'My Will.' Slowly and from somewhere deep within his trance, Charity reached to find her palm and grasped it like a reflex. She patted his wrist reassuringly, made to place his hand back in his lap, but he folded hers within his fingers and held on tight.

‘Shh…little Lydia,’ he whispered from his dream, ‘it has only been a nightmare. It’s all right. I’m here now. I’m here… ’


	20. Chapter 20

Elsie had heard the term ‘as silent as the grave’ before, but the air of the crypt was thick with quiet now. The domed building on the hill had been all but covered in turf, ivy and meadow flower and it had not been until she was close that she had really seen the entrance. In the daylight she was sure it blended with the slope but in the brilliance of Lydia’s magical beacon she had seen her salvation. Now it shielded her, and Will, muffling the world outside, keeping evil at bay and yet there was no real warmth to the place outside of Lydia’s makeshift sleeping area. Elsie could see a scattering of flowers, each chosen for its symbolism and plucked to die below ground. Carved faces in ancient stone watched over them with suspicion, the altar groaning with pewter shining coldly. Sarcophagi lay in a circle about it and rising above shining redly, a gigantic version of the sun she wore about her neck.

Lydia had been seated on a low stool by Will’s side for some time. He was curled on the cot, entranced still in her protective spell while she lay a hand gently on the unnatural burn that scarred his arm. She had bid Elsie sit out the healing and, with new understanding of its importance to his sister, Elsie did so though her heart strained to be with Charity when he so plainly needed her. Still this was not a world with which she was familiar despite her apparently critical role within it and she felt helpless and foolish in turns. There was a strength about Lydia she did not wish to contest along with a searing sense of guilt that it was for her own Protection that this woman had lost her brother and spent years in suspended anticipatory mourning. Not for the first time the effects of the Curse on others lend her a queasy feeling. She had spent so much time considering its effects on Will she had overlooked the idea that he had a family who loved him. Was it any wonder Lydia appeared to hate her, she was quite certain she might feel the same.

So, Elsie sat quietly at first and did not interfere. She watched as Lydia continued to mumble enchantments, as the glow at her fingertips waxed and waned, but it soon became obvious that the quality of Will’s wound had not altered. Somewhere outside the walls of their tomb Elsie imagined a village clock chiming the passing hours of the night but within the silence stretched on unbroken and goosebumps prickled her as the moisture of the crypt crept through her skin.

There was a shuffling sound from her right as she waited on the floor, stained skirts gathered about her on some old sacking. Her back was propped against what she could only assume was a sarcophagus, but the crypt lacked in amenities and as much as she did not wish to rest against a coffin her muscles ached and complained until she did so. It was as close to the little fire as she could get and within eyeline of Will so there she was, a tattered fairy queen surrounded by darkness and damp, her legs stretched out on a bag that once held potatoes and specks of soil pressing into her skin like grit.

The shuffling came again and she looked up to find Alexandra. The child, for all her bravery in leading them to safety now regarded her with badly disguised awe. Between her grubby hands she held a pewter mug steaming with something aromatic.

‘Made some tea,’ she said suddenly and thrust it forward with a splash. ‘Oops.’

‘That’s very sweet of you,’ Elsie said retrieving the mug and wiping the dribbles on her skirt. She peered into the contents. ‘Ginger?’

‘Some,’ the girl said.

‘And…?’

‘Honey too.’

‘You’re trying to warm me up?’

Alexandra nodded enthusiastically then resumed her wide-eyed stare. Elsie took a sip of the brew which burned a little heavy on the spices, but it was warm and might settle her stomach from its nerves.

‘Are you really her, ma’am?’ the girl asked at last.

‘Who?’

‘The Protected. The one mother told me about in the stories.’

‘Which stories? I thought it was all a big secret?’

‘Not to us, ma’am, that would be silly.’

Elsie considered this. Yes, indeed how silly of her to know nothing of such things. Both Will and now his sister and her daughter knew a good deal about the Protected. The only one who did not was Elsie herself. She waited, conscious of the child’s roaming eye taking in her bedraggled and most un-legendary appearance, but the girl offered nothing more. She decided to prod her further.

‘Well what do you think, Alexandra, do I look like her? The Protected in your stories?’

The girl considered. ‘You’re too old ma’am,’ she said bluntly. Elsie raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

‘Am I indeed?’

‘Yes, ma’am, the Protected isn’t that much older than me in the tales, that’s why she needs someone like mother.’

Elsie flicked a curious glance towards Lydia. ‘Oh?’

‘Yes, ma’am. The Priestesses teach and guide her.’

‘Guide her in what?’

There was a curse from the bedside and Lydia irritably swiped her palms down her apron, the light from her spell fizzling and dying on her skin. She leaned forward and inspected Will’s wounded arm again and frowned. Elsie pulled herself up from the cold floor with an ‘oomph’ sound. She was quite sure she had never ached upon rising before and wondered briefly if Alexandra was right about her age. From what Will had told her Protected and Protectors alike rarely lived long, and if running from spectres was a regular feature of their existence she could understand why it might be best to be in one’s prime for the purposes of the role. She had spent a lot of time picking plants and reading and not enough time taking exercise in her youth. Elsie shuffled forward feeling an awful lot older than twenty-six and then wondered how Will kept up now that he was as good as middle aged and had spent twenty years getting shot and diving off buildings.

‘How is he?’ Elsie asked.

Lydia’s shoulders tensed and she watched as she forced them to relax, turning with a rigid expression of tolerance in place. ‘It’s not healing as it ought to,’ she admitted.

‘I could mix a…’ Elsie started.

‘It will not work,’ Lydia said sharply. ‘A spell is required, there is no place for herbs and potions here, we are beyond childish magics.’

Elsie bristled and bit her lip, tempted to argue for the sake of her pride but not wishing to create further tension with Will’s sister of all people. Still she was not going to let it pass entirely.

‘Perhaps a poultice will ease the discomfort while you find an appropriate spell.’

‘He’s not in…’ Lydia looked down at her brother and fell quiet. On the bed Will lay pale and clammy, his eyes flickering rapidly beneath his lids and a slow writhe to his body indicating pain even in his dreams. ‘Very well, if it will keep you occupied, you should find what you need here.’ She stood and quickly picked a herbalists satchel from a sarcophagus which apparently served as a workbench and handed it to Elsie.

‘Thank you,’ Elsie spotted a table behind the head of the cot on which a pestle and mortar waited and took her place. She set down the tankard Alexandra had given her and carefully examined Will’s arm. He flinched under her touch and muttered.

‘Is he aware? Of us I mean, or is he truly dreaming?’ Elsie asked.

Lydia hovered at her shoulder. ‘He ought not to be conscious at all, he _should_ be in a deep trance, but it is as though something prevents the magic from working to its full potential. He is wrestling, within. I’m not sure how much he senses outside of his own mind.’

‘What could be fighting your magics? A counterspell?’

‘Those things that chased you here should have no power in these walls, they cannot reach him through the ward and they cannot bury beneath consecrated ground to have at you that way. I… have no answer for what continues to torment him other than the wound itself.’ A note of genuine loss entered her voice but she quickly dismissed it, a clear indicator of her refusal to appear out of her depth around Elsie. She would care for her brother and no arguments. Elsie’s heart sank a little further. She wanted very much to be a friend to the woman now that she knew there was no reason for rivalry between them, but she could not escape Lydia’s resentment.

‘I will mix a lotion for the wound to soothe,’ Elsie said, ‘I am not sure how else to help.’

Lydia looked at her askance.

‘But you have healed him before?’ she asked.

‘I… Yes I have mixed remedies for him and..’

‘I mean with the Curse, obviously?’ Lydia said.

‘What?’

‘The _light,_ you have used the light as I just tried to?’

‘Oh yes…but I couldn’t tell you how I… I mean I did not consciously…’ she hedged, hoping she would not have to explain their night of intimacy. Her introduction to Will’s family had been awkward enough. Lydia was silent a moment, but Elsie caught her eyes wandering to where Will moved restlessly on his pillow, his brow furrowed. Finally the woman’s pride and protectiveness seemed to give.

‘The power I can summon as priestess is limited in the face of this dark magic,’ Lydia confessed, ‘It is not strong enough to break whatever has him. You… you may have more luck, given who you are. You wear its source about your neck.’

Elsie looked up at her surprised. ‘I wouldn’t know how to.’

‘Well you should try,’ Lydia added somewhat reluctantly. ‘As you did before.’

Elsie felt her cheeks redden. ‘I’m not sure I can do that,’ she said.

‘Help him for God’s sake!’ Lydia cried, ‘You were so desperate to help before!’

‘Not like this I just meant…’

‘A potion?’

‘Well, that is my strength, I am a… a witch,’ she said.

‘You are the Protected!’

‘I don’t know what that means!’ Elsie snapped, ‘No matter how many times you, or Will tell me that I don’t know how to be the Protected!’

Lydia glared at her. ‘Try,’ she challenged.

‘But you already…’

‘I have tried!’ Lydia cried. ‘I have tried and I cannot. He’s my brother but I don’t understand what burned him and I cannot break whatever possesses him now. It is all I can do to keep him in a half trance, I do not have the…’ she broke off, frustrated and ashamed. ‘I can’t do it. You have to. It’s your fault anyway,’ she added a little petulantly. Elsie avoided her eye contact and kept her gaze low until she felt the atmosphere ease slightly.

‘Well, go on,’ Lydia said quietly.

‘You really have no idea?’ Elsie said after a beat. She ran her fingers over the glowing wound but her own magic did not make itself known. ‘What this is?’

‘No.’

‘You did not see the weapon?’

‘Oh I saw it,’ Lydia confirmed, ‘The whole village saw it. But it is not a thing I recognise.’

‘Then those creatures…?’

‘I sense their origin is evil, but where they come from…’ Lydia looked about the crypt as though more of the ghouls might be lurking in corners. ‘I guard the dead, that is my role, I have experience of all the entities that walk these lands after the breath leaves a body, good and bad. But I do not know those things.’ She looked back anxiously at Will. ‘I don’t know what they’ve done to him, it is… outside my learning. Please, just… help him.’

‘Well I don’t know either,’ Elsie said, ‘I’m not like you! I’ve never seen anything remotely like those things, or their weapon or… this crypt! I don’t know quite what you expect me to do…’

‘Use your power for God’s sake! You did it before, you healed him!’

‘That was just a flesh wound not a…’ she waved a hand over Will’s body in the vague hope a sprinkle of light might emerge as it had once before. Nothing happened. ‘Whatever this is!’ she finished.

‘It doesn’t matter what it is! You can fix it.’

‘How do you know that. How can I fix it when you can’t?’

‘Because my magic comes from books!’ Lydia said suddenly. ‘Great boring tomes I’ve spent years absorbing so that I might perform the most basic of rites. You don’t need any of that, you don’t need to _learn_ you just _are_.’

Elsie turned to look at her fully. ‘That thing on the door, that glowing orb outside, that is _not_ basic.’

‘Oh,’ Lydia chuckled, ‘Oh it is compared to what you can pull out the bag. Now don’t be coy. You’ve been politely sitting this one out since you found out who I am… you are positively dying to show it all off, your magnificence, rub my face in it, all the work I’ve had to do and you can just turn up and abracadabra! Well do on! Do it! Fix him! Fix him when I can’t, just one more thing you can be for him when I can’t!’

‘What are you talking about? Sitting it out? I thought you could deal with this! You told me not to interfere. ’

‘I didn’t…’

‘Yes, you did you ordered me not to help you, told me you were a priestess and you and healing magic and you would fix this thank you very much and you didn’t need my pathetic potions…’

There was a crash beside her and Elsie jumped to her feet just as the cot upturned and Will surged towards the fire, his coat tails flying out behind her and his hair wild.

‘Outside! They are outside!’ he cried, and lunged for a branch on a pile of firewood close by. He swept it onto the flames of the cooking pit and spun.

‘Will!’ Elsie cried.

‘Will, stop!’ Lydia grabbed for a stunned and frozen Alexandra and bundled her behind her as Will jabbed with the burning torch. ‘Listen to me, listen to my voice, Will! Stop!’

But whatever hold she had on him was flimsy now and he wheeled between them frantic with an unnatural green glint in his eye.

‘Outside! They are calling us!’ he howled.

Charity whipped back again and grasped at his hair, the flames coming alarmingly close to singing his curls as he fought with himself. ‘No! No! Can’t let them… stop them… help me…’

He turned back again, spinning to and fro on the same spot, the flaming torch lashing back and forth as he writhed. Elsie looked in horror as the burned flesh on his bad arm began to smoke again from within, the firefly edges of the wound glowing brightly.

‘Will!’ Lydia called and summoned up some form of energy to her finger tips. She sent it flying and briefly a set of golden ropes swaddled him like spider spinnings, the light soothing for just a moment until he burst free of it again. ‘No, Will no!’

Will took off again but staggered, tripping on the uneven surface of the crypt floor. He fell and sprawled, his costume coat catching on the edge of a sarcophagus and tearing as he collapsed and then, from within the material itself, buried within a pocket, something bright and green flew forth, spinning through the air. It landed with a sharp sound at Elsie’s feet, a rounded talisman with an etching of a man on its smooth jade surface.

From across the crypt Will groaned and tried to right himself, Lydia running to his side, but Elsie stood transfixed, bending slowly to reach for the gem at her feet. She squinted at the carving, the simple shape of a man kneeling, each line glowing brighter than its surrounding stone and the whispering voices from their pursuers loud again in her mind.

_Sickness, poison, weakness, death, sickness, poison, weakness…_

The heavy iron pan smashed down from nowhere, splinters of jade exploding across the grey stone floor and the voice went silent. Elsie found herself looking into a pair of worried blue eyes.

‘Don’t touch,’ Alexandra said.

‘W-what…?’

‘It’s a curse you stupid girl!’ Lydia spat at her, ‘Have you never even seen a curse stone? they must have planted it on him, that talisman has been weakening him the whole evening, keeping him locked into their voices, haunting him that way. Is it any wonder I could not heal him… Will… Will… look at me, look at your sister. _Will_!’

A groan from the ground and Charity turned onto his side, his gaze coming into bleary focus as he took in his surroundings. Th altar before him, the cluster of ancient sarcophagi, the leering faces of the dead carved into buttresses and pillars.

‘God almighty, did I die?’ he asked.

Lydia sat down with a thump beside him. ‘Almost,’ she said somewhat brusquely.

‘What the…’ Will smacked his mouth as though a bitter taste bothered him. ‘What on earth has been going on, last I remember I was dancing, _we_ were dancing,’ he corrected spotting Elsie, ‘Oh hello, are you all right?’ he checked. ‘Yes, Good, dress is in a bit of a state, love,’ Charity blinked but his confusion seemed to be lifting. ‘Where on earth are we and who…’ he turned to his side and saw his sister. ‘Oh,’ he said softly.

Lydia offered him an apologetic smile, ‘Probably take a moment for you to orientate,’ she said, eyes wet.

‘Lydia?’

‘Hello, Will.’

‘I… what are you…’ he looked about the crypt, ‘Why would you be…? _Lydia?_ Really?’

Lydia raised one hand and allowed the Red Suns power to trickle into her fingertips. ‘Couldn’t let you fight this war alone, now could I?’ she said. Will frowned his lips parting softly.

‘My dear, it was never your war to fight,’ he said. ‘The Curse was mine to bear from birth, not yours.’

‘Any war that takes my brother from me, is mine to wage in equal measure,’ Lydia said. ‘Becoming a priestess was my choice,’ she added, ‘One you never had when you became Protector.’

He looked at her in utter disbelief. ‘Your choice?’ he echoed. ‘You _chose_ this life?’

She nodded.

‘But why? The life of a Priestess is so…’

‘Lonely?’ she laughed, ‘Stuck near our hidden crypts living our secretive little lives. No more solitary than your destiny, Will and well I have a little company as you can see,’ she waved Alexandra over. ‘You’ve already met but perhaps we should do this formally, Alexandra, this is your Uncle Will. Come along, he’s quite all right.’

‘Is he better now?’ Alexandra whispered, hanging back. ‘Was it the green stone?’

‘Yes, I believe so. You did very well.’

‘It had a High-ro-glif, ‘ she explained solemnly and then, ‘I’m very glad you’re better!’ The girl flung her arms around Will’s neck and hung on hard until he was forced to take his good arm from the embrace and stop himself from toppling backwards on the floor where he sat.

‘Good heavens,’ he said, ‘Steady on, Sandy old chap.’

The child giggled and Elsie caught Will’s re-joining smile and the moisture in his eyes as he tried to laugh away the sudden sob in his throat. She felt it well in her own.

‘Well, I must say, I wasn’t expecting all this,’ he confessed as the newly christened Sandy slithered from his grasp and stood hopping with excitement by his side. ‘Um, right well….’ He tried to scrabble to his feet but caught his head with his good hand a moment after. ‘Oh, dear.’

‘Slowly Will,’ Elsie said reflexively and found herself on his right while Lydia grasped his left and lifted. The pair moved him back to the cot where they tugged the remains of his charred costume free from his shoulders and dumped it on the bed beside him. Will looked down at the tattered length of Bottom’s tail pinned to the back of the frockcoat before he made an awful realisation.

‘Good Lord, do you mean to say I’ve been raving like a loon all night with a donkey’s wotsit pinned to my arse?’

Lydia covered her daughter’s ears even as Sandy let out a squeak of delight. ‘Will! There is a child present!’

He winked at his niece playfully and gave his sister one of his most beguiling smiles. She rolled her eyes at him. ‘Fine, well we still need to fix that,’ she said nodding at his arm. ‘Elsie?’

‘Well um…’ Elsie hedged not wishing to start another argument between them in front of Will.

Charity looked between the two women expectantly.

‘Don’t all rush at once. Between you I’m pretty sure you’ve got this one licked but in your own time ladies.’

Elsie looked at her hands. Lydia examined her nails. Will raised an eyebrow.

‘I must say it does sting a bit…’ he tried looking down at his hand with a grimace. ‘Funny colour about it too so if you wouldn’t mind… Elsie? Lyds? Well one of you have a go!’

Lydia pursed her lips and shot a sidelong glance at Elsie. ‘Joint venture?’ she asked cautiously. ‘Your… power and my…’

‘Guidance, yes,’ Elsie said. ‘That would reasonable.’ They eyed each other carefully like two domestic cats circling on a patio before a fight. Will sighed and looked at Sandy.

‘Did I miss something important while I was being possessed?’ he asked. ‘I do hate it when that happens.’


	21. Chapter 21

The crypt was not the most comfortable of places to spend a night but after the initial rush and Will’s subsequent healing, Lydia found the time to locate a number of blankets and a variety of crates filled with mushrooms, dried herbs and potent flower remedies to serve as table and makeshift chairs. She ordered Will to stay on the cot and eloquently shoved a box towards Elsie with her foot, bidding her sit.

‘I was rather hoping to get some rest,’ Elsie said.

‘None of us expected to be sharing a single bedspace in a tomb, girl,’ Lydia answered. ‘But we need to make plans. There’s no time for rest.’

‘Let her have forty winks, Lyds, there’s a love,’ Will said from the bed.

He was laid upon his back in his shirt sleeves and breeches, his newly healed arm wrapped round his sleeping niece, who had apparently fallen foul of one of his longer tales of adventure and dozed off despite the heroics. Elsie could sympathise having sat through a few of the more inventive ones herself of late but Will had insisted on keeping the worried child’s spirits up while the women fixed his injury, a feat which was peppered with curses, frustration and the odd yelp of pain from Charity himself.

It was endearing really, the animation with which he told it. Alexandra’s eyes had been wide with alarm at the state of him until he began to tell her the tale of the Swamp of Perpetual Decay he had once been forced to cross. Elsie did not catch the name of the far of place in which the bog was located and she guessed, mid-way through the story, he had made up for entertainments sake, but the details of the inhabitants seemed rather too vivid for her liking and rang a bell of truth. Thankfully Alexandra, or ‘Sandy’ as Will insisted on calling the little tomboy, was absolutely delighted with the putrid details in the way only a child can be, and doubly thrilled with the elaborate voices Will gave each character he had met on his journey. Born story teller and children’s entertainer, that one. It made Elsie’s heart swell in ways she had never felt before.

Ultimately however, the whole business with the burn had taken longer than Elsie anticipated as Lydia wrangled her stubborn magic from within her on command. Until now the magical glow had never come to The Protected as it ought to, that was to say when asked, but rather it made random appearances according to (often somewhat compromising) circumstances. Elsie agreed she needed to learn to master such a useful skill but she could feel it protesting inside her as Lydia grasped Elsie’s wrist and applied her hand to Will’s wound. Like Elsie herself, her inner magic did not seem to appreciate being bossed about, but eventually it came, spilling brightly over Charity’s skin until the weeping flesh sealed itself without a mark. The experiment concluded ever optimistic Will had declared himself cheerfully rejuvenated but the dark circles and bags beneath his eyes told another story and in the last few minutes Elsie had seen him nodding in his place.

‘Just go to sleep, Will,’ she directed.

‘Yes, go to sleep, Elsie and I will carry on,’ Lydia said.

‘Carry on with what? Oh, come on, we’re all a bit the worse for wear, hmm? Can’t we all just take a leaf from Sandy’s book?’ he gestured to the sleeping girl with big appealing eyes. Elsie was ready to collapse onto the cot with him at a moments notice.

‘Those daemons are still out there Will,’ Lydia said.

‘And so they shall remain, for the night anyway, thanks to my very clever sister and her hitherto unknown magical abilities,’ he glanced towards the door of the central chamber through which the glow of the ward could still be seen. ‘Really very impressive,’ he said appraising her work, ‘Nifty little number that, was it from the Arcana?’

‘What’s the Arcana?’ Elsie asked. Lydia gave her a withering stare born of exhaustion and stifled irritation and then to Elsie’s surprise turned on Will.

‘Have you told her nothing?’ she asked. ‘Listen to her!’ She switched to an impersonation of Elsie’s lighter and slightly more refined tones, ‘’What’s the Arcana?’ she says, ‘What’s a Hall of the Dead?’ ‘Ooo is that a _spell_?’’

Will snorted at her and looked away from Elsie before she could scold him.

‘I don’t sound like that,’ she said quietly.

‘Course not, darling,’ he placated.

‘Honestly Will, it isn’t even funny,’ Lydia went on, ‘She doesn’t know a damn thing of her heritage, does she?’

‘Well that’s not technically my job is it?’ Will said, ‘I just stop her from getting hurt.’

‘You’re also never supposed to meet her in person, but that didn’t stop you crossing that particular boundary did it? Just what has been going on these last few months? The signs in the cards have been impossible to read…’

Will sucked on his teeth avoidantly.

‘There are cards?’ Elsie asked looking between them. Lydia sighed.

‘Yes, there are cards. They read the present, past and future, specifically yours and honestly, the last few weeks have been in a terrible mess, none of it makes sense.’

‘Well, rather a lot has happened,’ Will said, ‘A lot of um… complications to the usual er…’ he looked at Elsie desperately. Lydia followed his eye.

‘What are you two hiding? This marriage is a sham is it not? For the sake of your journey?’

‘’Course!’ Will fiddled with a button, ‘Just a… charade,’ he finished quietly.

‘Will the implications if you are both… I can’t even begin to… that isn’t even _covered_ in the Arcana!’

‘Are they like tarot cards? Can you do readings?’ Elsie asked quickly, ‘I’ve read about such things being used at seances. Like the Ouija boards.’

‘Oh, you would,’ Lydia said sarcastically, ‘Nothing middle-class ladies likes more these days than a bloody séance.’

Will chuckled.

‘What’s wrong with a seance?’ Elsie asked defensively. She had never been to one, but she felt under attack none the less from the woman who by default resented her very existence and in addition had implied her a fool. Her tension had to come out somehow. She would defend Ouija boards to the death if she must to make a point.

‘Load of tosh,’ Will said cutting in before she had a chance and making her feel doubly stupid, ‘Your average séance at the rotary club has about as much chance of summoning a spirit as klaxon at soccer match.’

Lydia put on a solemn voice ‘Spirits of the well to do women’s institute who meet on a Tuesday evening, can you hear me? Speak! Give me a sign!’

‘Woooo!’ Will groaned, lifting both hands and waggling his fingers, ‘I the spirit of the well to do women’s institute have crossed the perilous barrier between the realms of life and death this Tuesday to bring you an important message which I can only convey by means of rattling the table! See how it levitates on these otherworldly strings!’

Lydia cackled, folding herself forward on her box-stool until the tears squeezed from between her lashes. For a minute the pair were lost in their shared joke, their laughter receding slowly and reluctantly as they considered the reality of their own rather more serious otherworldly situation, but in the warmth of the moment Elsie saw that when they laughed the lines about their eyes were made of the same pretty creases.

Lines, she had always believed, told you the truth of the person’s character as the years made their mark and there was much about Lydia she instinctively liked, including the humour which had drawn her first to Will. Slowly the atmosphere was lifting from awkward reintroductions to something much more pleasant and she wished them both well. Elsie supposed she could stand a bit of teasing for the sake of it and resigned herself to being seen as a defender of seances.

‘Sorry darling,’ Will said gently, reading her posture, ‘We are awful, but you see such a lot of it these days amongst the well off and every bit of it is simple sleight of hand. I’ve done it myself for um… reasons we don’t need to go into, but I guarantee you these people would have the fright of their lives if a spirit really spoke to them, and well, you _would_ know how that feels…’

‘Those creatures _were_ spirits then?’ Elsie said.

Will and Lydia looked at one another. She saw Lydia’s face tick slightly in some subtle sign between them. After a moment Will’s sister stood and retrieved a heavy looking volume from the altar, laying it on the table between herself and Elsie.

‘Maybe we should start by finding out,’ Lydia said. ‘What they are and why they are here.’

Elsie looked over the leather-bound volume. It was a rich umber in colour with the distinctive pattern of the Red Sun burned into its old cover and traced over in red. Elsie sincerely hoped the pigment was paint but in places it darkened ominously. The thing was stuffed with thick, heavy parchments, the edges dirty from years of thumbing. Lydia opened it to the first page and a number of cards fell out. She gathered them into a little pack and lined up their edges.

‘The Arcana?’ Elsie guessed.

Lydia nodded, ‘Think of it as a book of secrets, all the secrets you ought to have been told by now, had you ever received your instruction. Your grandmother was raised by the priestesses, but your mother really did keep you sheltered, didn’t she?’

‘She did.’

‘Wanted to keep you safe I suppose.’

‘Yes.’

‘Pity our father never did the same for us, isn’t it Will?’ Lydia’s eyes trapped her and then she seemed to waver and look down. She sighed regretfully. ‘Sorry. I’m sorry. I followed Will willingly enough into this world and these decisions were not yours, I know.’ She took a breath and Elsie almost mustered the strength to say something to ease things, but then she was cut off. ‘Think of your pursuers,’ Lydia instructed, ‘Think of their voices in your mind, I know you heard them, recall it now and take a card.’

The pack was spread smoothly in a circle in Lydia’s left hand, but Elsie had not seen her do it. She glanced over at Will who simply nodded, and then she closed her eyes as she thought of the things in masks, the burn of their touch, the whispers in her head. Holding the images and sounds she reached forward to grasp a card when the pack disappeared from reach.

‘With your mind, girl,’ Lydia said and looked down meaningfully at the pack, ‘Pick one in your mind.’

Elsie looked at the pack, at a card close to Lydia’s pinky. ‘But how will you…?’

Slowly the card glowed golden.

‘Thank you’ Lydia said as it rose from the others, facing towards her. The light reflected in her eyes as her pupils widened. ‘The slave inverted,’ she said and then hesitated as a second card rose silently from the pack. She frowned. ‘And the stranger.’

‘What does that mean?’ Elsie asked.

‘If they were once men, they are not now, the inversion indicates their ties to the other world,’ Lydia said, ‘Something other binds them here, but their allegiance is not voluntary. My best guess is they have been harnessed by a greater power, they do its bidding. They have a master.’

‘Wonderful,’ Will said, ‘A necromancer.’

‘Who?’ Elsie asked.

‘The stranger,’ Lydia said laying the card before her. A set of feral eyes in a featureless dark mask looked back up at her.

‘Well, that doesn’t narrow it down,’ Elsie said, feeling fed up with riddles.

Lydia brought her hand down in the midst of the cards irritably. ‘The cards are not so straightforward as that. That the stranger has risen under your gaze is a sure sign it is no stranger at all. He will be connected to you, someone you know.’

‘Well, that is just a stupid system,’ Elsie snapped, her head beginning to throb from fatigue. ‘Until a few weeks ago I never even left the estate. I don’t know anybody to have an enemy, you’re wrong!’

‘Oh, do let me apologise for my unwieldy primitive magic, your greatness!’ Lydia said. ‘But that is what it means.’

‘Ladies, please,’ Will said with a hint of tension. He nodded at Alexandra who had snuggled tighter against him, in her sleep, her head heavy on his chest.

‘How she sleeps through any of this, I have no idea,’ Lydia commented, lowering her voice.

‘Tired girl, take it from me, saving the day is an exhausting business,’ Will said. Lydia fell silent. ‘Look,’ he continued scrubbing his hand though his hair, ‘Elsie did have a vision of some enemies, a few days back while we were travelling. Could that have anything to do with things?’

Lydia looked at her sharply. ‘Never left the estate eh? Funny way to collect enemies.’

‘The vision was from Will’s past not mine… the enemies are his.’

‘Will’s past? _Will’s_? How then have you the ability to claim his enemies as yours?’

‘We shared a connection…’ Will said without looking directly at his sister. ‘Before the er… well before the visions came to her there was a um… a _moment_ one night where um…’

‘Bonding,’ Elsie said. ‘There was magic involved and we bonded. And after that we have been closer. Isn't that correct Will?’

‘Absolutely. Glowy, sparkly thing,’ Will said vaguely. ‘It was all very intense. Intense and magical and um... entirely innocent. ’

Lydia looked between them and then bit her lip very deliberately and looked back at the cards. ‘Innocent. Magical connection. Right. I see. Go on. What was the vision about then, who are we dealing with?’

‘It was of my time in Abyssinia,’ Will said, ‘and of a very particular man, a very ambitious and unscrupulous man named Adato. He was mixed up with some old allegiances to ancient gods when I encountered him. Usual story, greedy bastard, glory seeker etcetera.’

‘He took Will hostage,’ Elsie said, ‘Tortured him.’

Lydia spun on her stool the latest revelation about her brother’s past proving to be too much for her, ‘What?!’

‘Now, now we don’t need the details,’ Will said. ‘I’m all right, it was a long time ago, Lyds.’

‘What did he do to you? Will, when was this?’

‘During the war, look it doesn’t matter,’ he dismissed, ‘As I say it was a long time ago but the point is he clocked the amulet and a man like that, well he knows a thing or two about ancient prophecies and legends and it’s not too much of a leap of the imagination to deduce that he is behind this if that reading you just did is accurate. He is after all an enemy I know of.’

His sister looked suddenly horrified. ‘Abyssinia? Will, this is making sense. I think he’s trying to take you out so he can get to Elsie. That talisman with the hieroglyphic,’ Lydia said. ‘What was on it exactly?’

‘It looked like a man kneeling,’ Elsie said and Will nodded as though he already knew the answer.

‘It’s the symbol for weakness, in the same logographic as the symbols used in the pyramids of Abyssinia. Weakness, nausea, fatigue and probably acting like a drunken fool at village dances.’

‘So it _is_ him, Adato?’ Lydia asked.

‘I’ve suspected for a while but this confirms it. I’m afraid that this particular threat is one I have brought upon the Red Sun and Elsie myself. Bravo Will, Bravo,’ he added sadly.

‘He wouldn’t be after you at all if it wasn’t for the legend,’ Lydia said bitterly, ‘you’d just be another soldier in a war.’

Will let out a terse sigh and his tone suddenly brokered no argument with his younger sister, his indulgence of her snarkiness towards Elsie evidently tested to the end of its rope.

‘I’m fairly certain I’d be a _dead_ soldier if it wasn’t for the legend, Lyds. As Protector I have an uncanny knack for surviving things I shouldn’t. You should be thanking Elsie, not getting a dig in at every opportunity, enough now, don’t think I haven’t noticed.’

Lydia suddenly looked very young, and folded her arms, muttering a vague apology. Will looked irritated and ignored her contrition. The scene had a nostalgic feel to it as though it had played out many times before and Elsie supposed there had been plenty of incidents when Lydia had been pulled up by her big brother for her behaviour in the past if her rather stroppy demeanour was anything to go by.

‘This development alarms me,’ Will continued, ‘Adato is more than capable of this style of play but to manage this? He has explored more of the dark arts than I anticipated and who knows what he is capable of in terms of possessions, spells, _raising the dead_. We have been meandering North when we ought to have been running. I’ve allowed us to be too relaxed, far too lackadaisical, but we need to get a wiggle on now. He’s stepping up the game. He wants me out of the way to get to Elsie, he’s put you and Sandy here in the firing line and after what he did to Ahmes I can’t…’

He stopped and looked down at Alexandra his jaw tense.

‘Who is Ahmes?’ Lydia asked and then looked to Elsie for answers when Will gave none, but Elsie felt herself sworn to kept his secrets, the pain in his expression was like a glass full to the brim, the slightest adjustment set to send it spilling.

‘Why would anyone go to such lengths to get to me?’ she said instead.’ Arranging a robbery on the highway is one thing, but possessing the dead, well it’s a little extreme.’

Will’s answering glance gave her reassurance that he was steady again. ‘Well, you’ve seen what you can do both as a weapon and a healer,’ he said, ‘What ambitious warlord or leader wouldn’t want you on his side? What it must be to be so popular,’ he added playfully.

‘Be quiet. So what do we do next?’ Elsie asked, directing the question at Lydia.

‘Head North as we were before to the Great Barrow,’ Will said.

‘The Great…? You never called it that before! You just said my grandmother was there.’

‘She is. And it is the place where your amulet was forged,’ Lydia explained, ‘Where the power of the Red Sun is total. You will be safe there. I suggest you stick to the old roads, take your rest at the Halls of the Dead along the route, they will offer sanctuary should those things be out there. You can move by day. The dead take their power from darkness.’

Will nodded his assent, ‘The Halls are more common North of the Border,’ he explained, ‘Once you get past Hadrian’s wall they are everywhere. ’

‘I can get you supplies,’ Lydia said, ‘To get you to the border and I can alert the High Priestess to your plans.’

‘No,’ Will said, ‘Trust nobody, any line of communication may be interfered with at present. I planned to take the caravan, travel the backroads, we can still do that, but we must send no word ahead.’

‘No more inns,’ Lydia said, ‘Or village dances. What were you thinking Will!’

‘It didn’t seem quite so pressing before.’

‘You were distracted.’

‘I was not!’

‘A pretty face has always turned your head, Will.’

‘You know nothing of it, Lydia,’ he snapped, ‘Do not dare to tell me of my own feelings when you have not lived the life that I have these last five and twenty years!’

Lydia glared at him. ‘I’m sorry Will but I shall. Do you think my life has been easy? We work for the same cause, I know how hard it can be but you took your eye off the ball, I am not an idiot, I can see what is happening here and… no you will listen to me!’ she waved him down.

Will ground his jaw but remained quiet.

‘You will listen to me because I love you, and while I understand that you have been alone, alone and lonely without a soul for years, you have us now, and we love you and you will heed us.’

He sniffed.

‘If Alexandra and I had not been here, Will, if you had faced those things alone…’

‘I know, I know. She’s a remarkable little girl. Like her mother, I suppose.’

‘She’s quick and brave but more than that. She spotted the Amulet this morning when you bought one of her dollies, came running to tell me full of excitement. I didn’t believe her of course, thought I’d shown her too many pictures and she was imagining Red Suns everywhere,’ she turned to Elsie, ‘She’s obsessed with the legend, she can hardly believe you are a real person and… I suppose I cannot either. Almost twenty years I have trained in the Arts to serve the Red Sun, I never thought I would meet the Protected.’

‘I’m sorry if we have brought chaos, I know it has shattered my own life and I would not wish it on others,’ Elsie said, ‘But I’m grateful to you both, for helping us, for helping Will especially. Both you and Sandy.’

Lydia hesitated a moment before accepting her statement. ‘You did not choose this role any more than I did. Let’s see what lies ahead shall we,’ she said, ‘I will do another reading, a future spread. Let’s see what they might want from you.’

She shuffled her cards.

‘Protection, Healing, Long Life, Fertility,’ Lydia said spreading them forth across the table top. ‘This is your Gift, your Power, your Strength, your Blessing.’

She pulled a card free of the pack, then another and another, laying four face down between her and Elsie.

‘You more than any woman represent these strengths, and men always covert such things for themselves…’ She looked up at Will, ‘You are definitely not married in the eyes of the Christian God?’ she asked suddenly.

‘What? No, I told you it was just pretend…. What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Just an arrangement,’ Elsie said. Lydia tilted her head slightly then looked down at the ring on Elsie’s hand. ‘Oh, this is…’

‘So there was no ceremony? No special day? It was just make believe? Nobody has blessed you as a couple, because you are a couple, are you not?’

Will swallowed and watched the back of her head as she turned the first and laid it before Elsie.

‘Things rather got ahead of us, I'll admit, but it was for appearances sake that there needed to be a ring.’ he said. He adopted a falsely casual air. ‘Did you marry? Do you um... wear a ring yourself?’

‘Me? What a ridiculous question, Will.’

‘Well,’ he nodded at Alexandra and widened his eyes, ‘She has a father I presume?’ he whispered.

Lydia shot him an unimpressed look. ‘Yes, Will, she has a father, somewhere, but no, I did not marry.’

‘What!?’ he looked aghast.

‘Hush, you’ll wake her.’

‘Do you mean to say a sister of mine has… do you even know where he is, _who_ he is?’

‘Will!’ Elsie said, shocked.

‘What is it to you!’ Lydia said.

‘Well. I … nothing I’m sure,’ he said a little petulantly. ‘Not sure our father would see it like that though. As you say in this climate women can’t just go about… having babies, he would have a fit.’

‘For God’s sake don’t bring father into it, or his opinions of child rearing, the man who cast you out as a child into the snow. I couldn’t care less what he thinks and you ought to know better! I have a job to do Will. If I were married no husband alive would let me spend each weekend in a crypt persuading the restless dead back into their tombs!’

Elsie felt her eyes widen at that but nobody else in the room seemed the least surprised.

‘Lydia!’ Will protested. ‘I am merely concerned for your reputation, I would not see you ostracised!’

‘I am hardly that. I have lived her since long before Alexandra was born, I am quite accepted.’

‘Oh, so you just hang about in your crypt because you like it so much, it’s all making sense now, Lord, the villagers probably thing you’re a fallen woman, they’ll be whispering behind your back.’

Elsie moaned to hear him talk in such terms. ‘Please stop, Will, none of this is relevant,’ she begged. ‘You sound like an old man.’

‘Some of us were raised with values,’ he said pompously.

‘Will, she is your sister!’

‘No, no let him have his say! The hypocrite! ’ Lydia said, ‘One man is as bad as the next, even my precious brother it seems, I suppose you have been living like a monk since I last saw you? Never touched a woman? Never deflowered a virgin before her wedding day?’

Beside her Elsie felt red in the face indeed. Lydia threw her a knowing glance of such absolute smugness that it almost felled Will on the spot. ’I knew it,’ she said triumphantly. ‘Not married and yet you bedded the Protected at the earliest opportunity! 'Magical bonding?' 'Things got ahead of us?' Such an understatement as I have never heard. Mere weeks you have known her! _Weeks,_ Will and you have given into lust, tempted her from her chastity. The heavens help us now, and goodness knows what the cards will show! Do you remember any of the teachings at all Will or did you just drop your breeches?’

‘I did not just ‘drop my breeches’!’ he declared, ‘I… it was not… there was an enchantment… I resisted for, well at least a… the best part of an evening …’ he stopped. ‘No, well… suppose I didn’t resist terribly long um…yes, all right,’ He shut his mouth abruptly and shrank back onto the cot.

‘Ha!’ Lydia cried.

‘But I won’t have you casting aspersions on Elsie or on myself!’ he rallied. ‘Enchantment or no, I am a gentleman in my doings, any activities were by mutual agreement, I have _feelings_ and I would hope they are reciprocated _.’_ He looked at Elsie shyly and then his gaze skittered away. It made her feel warm inside and she blushed again for different reasons.

‘And as for before, well I’ve treated ladies very well in my time,’ Will said still defending himself gallantly, ‘and I’m not averse to the institution as a whole, and if things were different then of course I would, I’d make an honest woman of her willingly, it’s just that, well marriage is a rather difficult thing to consider when you’re saving the world from evil spirits and so on, so…’

‘My problem exactly, Will,’ Lydia said growing bored of his fluster and having made her point. ‘It is the same for women as for men, and I will hear no more argument. Honestly I thought better of you.’

Will pouted but Lydia did not rise to it choosing instead to tease him further. ‘Now if you don’t mind, I was doing a reading before you chose to judge me on my morality.’

‘I resent that. I am entirely fair. I am the last person to judge anyone on any of life’s….’

‘Well stop doing it then. Honestly… men. Full of double standards. About time one of us fallen women put you in your place.’ Lydia winked at Elsie with an trade mark Charity wink, and for the first time Elsie felt a flood of warmth between them.

‘Protection. The Magician,’ Lydia declared pointing to the first card. ‘Will, that’s you, what have you to say about it?’ Elsie looked over at Will who recovered himself and tapped the side of his nose.

‘All will be revealed,’ he said. ‘You remember Bismillah, don’t you Lyds?’ He yawned and slithered down a bit on the cot, bundling Alexandra closer and tucking a blanket about her.

Lydia looked down at her cards her eyes circling in alarm. ‘God help us all, the return of Bismillah, that’ll be a wonder to behold.’ She cleared her throat and focused. Turned the second card.

‘Healing, The Priestess. Well I would agree there,’ Lydia said, ‘You need my input. After the length of time it took to mend Will’s arm, I’ll have to show you a few tricks… if you don’t mind that is?’ she added hastily. ‘I mean, we could have a look at some of the basics, before you go. You’re welcome to stay here for a day or two.’

‘That would be very helpful, thank you,’ Elsie said. Lydia smiled.

The third card was turned, ‘Long Life, the Sword,’ Lydia huffed. ‘Well that’s obscure. Whose sword? His? The enemy’s?’ Elsie looked back at Will who made a shrugging gesture. ‘I suppose nothing is set in stone, perhaps the future is yet to be decided, but I was hoping there would be a hint.’

Behind them Will yawned and shut his eyes. ‘Can we all go to sleep yet? Does it always take this long?’

‘In a moment,’ Lydia said. She turned the last card. ‘Fertility,’ she said and stopped, brows knit. There was a pause. ‘The Star’ she said quietly. She let her hand rest over the face of the card and the glow of magic squeezed out from under her palm.

‘What’s the star?’ Elsie said.

Beside her Lydia was focusing within herself, at whatever truth the card was telling her. The moments ticked by in silence, long enough that Will’s breathing deepened to a snore behind them. Finally, when his sister opened her eyes they rested on the emerald wedding band on Elsie’s hand and their expression was fathomlessly soft.

‘No ring blessed by any other man may bind you as one given in true love,’ she said gently. ‘Happened suddenly did it?’

‘What did?’

‘The wedding night.’

Elsie looked at her, not sure what to say and thoroughly taken aback.

‘Your union?’ Lydia said. ‘Let me guess. One minute he was a rather irritating cad and then next...’

‘The next?’

‘The next he was the centre of your world. I think you are in love with him, would be bereft without him. And I think it hit you hard and sudden, like a spell.’

‘It wasn’t a spell… it isn’t a spell. It’s _real_ , I love him.’ Elsie said quickly.

‘Oh, it’s real,’ Lydia said and nodded at the card in her hand, ‘I see beyond, remember. I just… I hadn’t quite expected this development, but then looking at your face, I don’t think you did either.’ She looked over her shoulder at her sleeping brother. ‘He hasn’t a clue yet does he? Do you?’

‘What are you talking about,’ Elsie said.

Lydia contemplated her, eyes drifting to the amulet about her neck. ‘All those years locked up in your father’s estate, all that time alone, the years ticking by, your marriage prospects fading. In times past the Protected were matched by the priestess to a husband to ensure the line continued, but there you were all but imprisoned by your family with us watching helpless from afar. Until one day you, what? Just ran into him? William Charity, just _appeared_?’

‘He was my mother’s friend,’ Elsie said, ‘She _asked_ him for his help.’

‘And he didn’t hesitate. The man who was never supposed to meet you. Who had spent over twenty years avoiding such an encounter because it was his duty. You don’t think it is odd that all of a sudden you were thrown together? That you both came to one another willingly with a force that was irresistible? This isn’t something the denizens of the Dead Halls would ever have ordained or predicted. I doubt it was even your mother's original intention.’

‘What does it mean?’ Elsie said.

‘It means the rules are changing my girl, the Red Sun forges its own path now, outside of the Arcana and the Legend, beyond my teachings, perhaps beyond even that of the High Priestess. Such a thing has never happened before. A union of both Amulets and though I feared its implications I see now... I see there is nothing to fear at least not from within.’

‘I don’t understand what you are saying,’ Elsie said, increasingly tired and confused by the way Lydia was looking at her with something bordering on rapture.

Lydia pushed the last card towards her, still shining. ‘Fertility,’ she said with a smile, ‘A difficult prophecy to fulfil for a virgin but it’s strange, isn’t it, how the Red Sun always finds a way.’

‘A way to do what?’ Elsie said.

‘Ensure it has an heir.’

'But that's not possible!'

Lydia regarded her steadily for a moment, before lifting Elsie's left hand and placing it over the card. Elsie felt the magic trickle up her arm and into her chest, felt it wrap its warmth around her waist and hips before it gathered at the centre of her and waited. She looked down at her own belly, where the palm of her other hand was resting, and beneath it saw a glow, faint and fragile, newly born and beautiful. It beat like a heart under her fingertips.

The Star.


	22. Chapter 22

In the following days that passed, as Elsie and Will made ready to take their journey further north, the four of them fell into something like routine. After lifting the protective Ward that first morning Lydia’s suspicions that what pursued them took its power from darkness were confirmed. All was still and safe and silent. The world beyond the Dead Hall bathed in autumn sunlight and fallen leaves, the breeze moving softly over the meadow like a soothing palm caressing each blade and flower.

Lydia returned to her bakery, emerging mid afternoon with supplies; food or medicines, sacks of flour or binding for the bandages Will would inevitably need, and lugging the lot up the incline to their hiding place before dusk. She traded in the marketplace and helped the couple keep to a low profile, closing up the circular door of the carved stone dome which protected them at night and replacing her spell.

Elsie sat by the cooking pot and listened in the candlelight to the creatures outside, the first night howling with their anger, then the next and the next growing fainter. Such things were unable to exist for long trapped between the planes of existence, used against their will. They would fade in time and when they did Charity would move her on, but there would be more, and they would keep coming, in different guises but all sent from the same master, and so the fading cries lacked in comfort but represented instead the emergence of another unknown threat in their near future.

Lydia said nothing of the baby, wouldn’t say against her will, but Elsie could feel her eyes upon her as they sat down to prepare their evening meal on the third day. Sandy’s rebellious red hair was being tamed at Elsie’s hands as Will’s sister stirred the cooking stew, but the wriggling child was impatient to get back to the latest trick her uncle had taught her.

There were three cups discarded by a sarcophagus nearby and to Lydia’s intense displeasure the mischievous pair had broken into a box of sacred runes at some point in their games. They received a verbal ear boxing to rival any Elsie had once got from Mrs Pence in her youth and Will had managed to look suitably penitent before pulling faces behind his sisters back and being caught in the act. Lydia was sharp. She had Sandy clean her dirty hands and sit with Elsie away from trouble, while Trouble was ordered to clean last night plates in the hot water warmed over the fire. Will grumbled something about being an adventurer and not a maid but to Elsie’s amusement was absolutely biddable and handed over the child to her to be tidied and made presentable. She tugged the brush as gently as she could through the rats tail tangles and listened to Sandy prattle about the effects of a much more innocent kind of magic than the one she was wrestling with herself.

Earlier Elsie had met Lydia on the path home, helping her to carry a sack of grain while she shouldered a jug of wine. The two women had climbed the slope so slowly that Elsie had stopped to check her companion was quite well.

‘We can swap if you like,’ Elsie suggested nodding at the jug.

‘In your condition,’ Lydia shook her head curtly, ‘I think not. Cradle the sack, you’ll need to get used to the weight in your arms.’

She found herself biting back a reply but as usual Lydia needled it out of her.

‘Why haven’t you spoken of it?’ she pressed. ‘At all? To him I mean? Or even me?’

Elsie stared ahead, up the slope towards the dome, to where Will could be seen tending to the weaponry Lydia had accumulated over years in the Order and stashed for such emergencies. He had set up a flimsy table in the sun, keen to be out of the dungeon like conditions and removed his coat, white shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows and waistcoat half undone. Sandy was dancing about the table excitedly, her mornings classes in the village school long finished.

‘Elsie? The baby, you have said not one word.’

‘There is little I can say,’ Elsie said, ‘On the basis of a tarot card. I don’t even feel pregnant.’

Lydia shot her an irritated look and haughty laugh. ‘You of everyone know that card to be as accurate as any old wives test, or would you rather I poured vinegar in your morning piss and check for froth? Say the word, I have some in the bakery or we could pour some of your waters on some barley and see if it sprouts…’

That did it, Elsie rounded on her, grain still clutched to her bodice but her cheeks flaming with anger.

‘How dare you speak to me that way!’

‘How dare you question the Old Signs,’ Lydia hissed coming close to her face, ‘For my brothers sake I would not have him discover his child’s existence by hearing us caterwauling in the middle of a meadow, but I will not have you simply ignore its existence either. You are with child, the cards have spoken and you feel it, mark my words, you feel it but have not the courage to accept it yet.’

‘Stop it! I am not ignoring it, I…’ tears sprang to Elsie’s eyes and shocked her. She dashed a hand across her face, struggling to hold the grain in one arm. Quick as a flash Lydia put down her jug and relieved her of the burden, turning her by the elbow so that her back was to Will and he would not see, should he chose to glance down to the village. Elsie tried to wave her off and failed miserably. ‘I am fine, I am… why am I crying?! For God’s sake I was _fine_ …’

‘Babies do odd things to women,’ Lydia said her irritation vanishing as quickly as morning mist, ‘I once stepped upon a snail when I was some weeks gone with Alexandra. Cried for an hour. Inconsolable. I still remember that snail and it has been eight years hence. The guilt! You’d think my own grandmother had died by my hand.’ She twisted her mouth comically and nodded knowledgably at Elsie. ‘Happens to us all,’ she confirmed.

Elsie laughed, more tears spilling out over her cheeks. Lydia patted her arm.

‘You need to tell him,’ she said in a kinder tone.

‘Oh Lord, how can I?’ Elsie said looking out across the village.

‘He will be nothing but happy I assure you.’

‘Happy?’ We are running for our lives. The last thing we need now is a baby. He even said…’ she stopped awkwardly thinking back to her first night of intimacy with Will. Lydia waited.

‘What did he say?’ she asked when Elsie was not forthcoming.

Elsie blushed. ‘’T’was when we…’ she looked at the ground. ‘He said we could ‘do without any little Charities running about so he …well he didn’t… you know,’ she dropped her voice further, ‘finish _with_ me so that we wouldn’t… I wouldn’t…. he’s always been very particular about that.’

Lydia snorted, partly at her clumsy wording and partly Elsie suspected at her naivety. Lydia seemed to specialise in pointing out her naivety on an hourly basis about one thing or another.

‘What?!’ Elsie asked tartly, ‘I was a maid, I trusted him, I _do_ trust him. I didn’t think I could get with child if he did not… well you know.’

‘There’s a woman in the village, Mrs Simmons, she and her mister swear by that method. Catholic couple.’

‘Well then, others must have had faith in it too,’ Elsie said.

‘They have nine children,’ Lydia commented.

‘Oh.’

‘And in your defence you have the Red Sun bringing you together,’ Lydia tapped her nose, ‘I’m fairly sure it would find any opportunity.’

‘But I swear he never once…. I would have remembered because I wanted him to…’

Lydia held up her hand with a pained expression. ‘Ah!’ she said sharply. Elsie fell quiet though to tell the truth she still did not see how it could have occurred and her mind was now busily replaying the various scenarios in which she had found herself with Will.

‘How it happened is less important than the fact it has,’ Lydia said hurrying her off those memories, ‘What happens now is all we should be concerned with, and how he will respond to the news. You have nothing to worry about, believe me, I know my brother even after all these years apart.’

‘No,’ Elsie said decisively, ‘it will upset him, worse anger him.’

‘Anger him?’ Lydia scoffed.

‘The way he spoke to you about being Fallen,’ Elsie said, ‘I was horrified. What if he thinks that of me? Men have been more hypocritical in the past.’

‘Oh he can be a bit stuffy, but we set him to rights did we not?’ Lydia said.

‘I couldn’t bear it if he turned on me, or was disappointed, or blamed me somehow… perhaps I ought to have done something, to prevent it? Perhaps I should have known how, like other women? I ought to have. With my herbs I helped others fall with child, I never thought to stop it…’ she looked at her with wide eyes feeling very out of her depth.

‘Oh Elsie,’ Lydia sighed and turned her by the elbow again to nod up the hill. ‘Do you really think so little of him. He’s a fool sometimes but he has a good heart, and he does love you, truly.’

‘I have heard men change towards women once they are with child, we are unmarried, Lydia, and in trouble. There could not be a worse moment for this, I will be a burden to him.’

‘A burden, what nonsense.’ Lydia grabbed the jug in her free hand and hefted the items against her ample chest, dismissing Elsie’s attempts to help her. ‘Come you have gone from ignoring it entirely to overthinking yourself into a fever. You are no burden, nor ever will be, not to him.’

‘Well how else would you describe me?’ Elsie said reluctantly folding her arms as they started back up the hill even slower than before, ‘Everything that I have put him through already before we even met and now this! He would be kind about it I’m sure, he is not a cruel man, but at the very least he would be mad with worry and he has enough of that already.’

‘So you won’t say a thing?’ Lydia said, a slight sweat breaking on her brow from the effort of the climb.

‘Let me take that sack back.’

‘No, you might get the vapers, a lady like you. You’re not used to manual work or carrying a child, you’ll keel over. Have you started feeling bilious yet?’

‘What? No… I…’

‘He will notice,’ Lydia said. ‘When you’re puking of a morning. The sickness will start and the swelling...’

‘Swelling?’

‘In your…’ she nodded to Elsies cleavage, ‘Although I suspect he won’t mind that effect at all but he might wonder why you are chewing on coal for breakfast or demanding he find you sugared violets in the middle of a night.’

‘Sugared violets?’

‘I had a terrible craving for them,’ Lydia said, ‘Could be anything mind, woman I know had an awful thing for cockles.’

‘Cockles?’

‘And we ain’t exactly near the sea in these parts. It’s a day’s journey for a cockle.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I’m saying,’ Lydia said, stopping just out of earshot of Will and Sandy, ‘Its going to be obvious soon enough. Come winter you’ll be showing and if he lays with you each night, you can hardly hide it from him then. How long do you think you can keep this up?’

Elsie chewed her lip, her eyes flitting over Will and his niece. On the table before him she could see a number of pistols, an ammunition belt and some sort of whet stone on which he had clearly been sharpening a blade, but all of that seemed abandoned now. Instead he had pushed aside the weapons, found three cups and upended them and was in the middle of entrancing Sandy with another of his parlour tricks. Animated and charming he seemed to beg a favour of the child and with a little reticence Sandy dug in her apron and found one of the coins Will had given her before, handing it over. He grinned and took it graciously, lifting the centre cup and hiding it beneath. Elsie could see Sandy focusing very hard on his instruction as he tapped the thing with the tip of his finger and bid her watch carefully.

‘I can’t tell him yet,’ Elsie said quietly, ‘I can barely believe it myself. I… don’t know what it means for us or…’

‘Nor do I,’ Lydia said watching her daughter’s rapt face, ‘In the longer term I mean, for you, for him, for the Order. I don’t’ know what will become of your child.’

Will was switching the cups back and forth as Sandy tried to follow where the coin travelled. His hands were skilled, a blur of movement and illusion and when she finally came to pick a cup it came back empty, her face falling. She picked a second, but it too held nothing and she looked up at her uncle in alarm. He raised an eyebrow and nodded at the third cup.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ Elsie said as Sandy pointed to the third cup, certain of her prize. She heard her gasp as Will lifted it away with aplomb and nothing remained beneath, the coin vanished. Lydia looked on calmly as her child frowned her displeasure and for a tiny moment there was a flicker of uncertainty on her freckled face, a hint of doubt in the man she had decided so firmly to love.

‘Trust him,’ Lydia said softly as her daughter’s lip threatened to quiver. ‘At his heart he is the same man he has always been.’

‘Meaning what?’ Elsie asked.

In the beat between disappointment and hot tears Will timed his rescue and with the tip of his cane suggested Sandy check within her pocket once again. She dug in deep with just a hint of panic and then withdrew the shining coin, her eyes as bright as the silver it was made of.

Beside her Lydia’s face told her she had never doubted him. ‘He will never let you down,’ she said, handing Elsie back the sack of grain, ‘When it comes to ones he loves, he doesn’t know how.’

Stomachs full Sandy had bedded down with her mother in a second makeshift bed made largely of straw which Lydia had brought to the crypt on the second day of their stay. The pair could hardly be seen in the shadows and Elsie lay curled with Will against her back watching the dying embers of the cooking fire from behind a thick pillar on the west side of the inner chamber. She could not settle and was distractedly musing on a mixture of topics from the tangle of straw that would inevitably wreck her efforts with the child’s French plait to the baby she knew grew inside her. Lydia had been right, there was no arguing with cards, and slowly she was accepting the fact even if she was as yet not able to broach the topic with Will. She would have to, she knew, but feeling him there with her, his breathing soft and steady and his limbs heavy in relaxation she hardly had the heart to add such anxiety to his infrequently quiet mind tonight. She tugged at the front of her chemise where it was caught under her side and squirmed.

‘Lord it is like trying to sleep with the Lambton worm in my arms,’ Will said.

Elsie laughed. ‘That is very offensive!’

‘It was only a small worm,’ retorted. ‘But very wriggly.’

‘It grew bigger and bigger until it could wrap itself around a huge rock and terrorise a whole village, WIll.’

‘I’m not saying it didn’t have a healthy appetite,’ Will shifted behind her and she felt him press against her. ‘Speaking of worms that grow bigger and bigger,’ he whispered.

‘For goodness sake!’

He kissed her neck gently and eased his mouth under the edge of her chemise even as his hand rucked up the hem under the covers. He pressed against her more firmly. Elsie giggled.

‘You know it has been a little while since the beastly undead interrupted our session in the alley.’

Elsie covered her face and tried to supress her laughter.

‘Will, your niece is sleeping on the other side of this crypt!’

‘I see you are more concerned for her innocence than the fact I am trying to have you in a crypt,’ he observed wryly. ‘That’s my girl, I’m quite proud.’

‘I wouldn’t expect anything less from you,’ Elsie admitted. The chemise was pulled now to her waist under their rough blanket. She felt the palm of his hand on her belly and flinched. Will stopped.

‘Everything all right?’ he asked his voice a horrible mixture of worry and sadness. ‘I mean if it really is a bit inappropriate I do understand, sorry my dear,’ and he started to move his hand away. Elsie caught it, squeezed it hard, placed it back against her belly.

‘Everything’s fine,’ she said.

‘Are you sure, it has been a rough few days, I’m so sorry I can be so selfish at times, you must be exhausted and…’

Elsie lifted his hand to her breast and squeezed his fingers over her flesh. Her skin tingled at the contact, a somehow more sensitive sensation than before and she felt warmth travel down her body ending in her grinding hard into him with the curve of her hips. Will breathed out harshly, cutting the sound off with his mouth on her shoulder. She felt him move her slightly, lifted her leg to help him find his way.

There was a sudden urgency to both of them, there in the darkness, surrounded by the cold and ancient stone, a tiny pool of heat forming between them like the last of the wood that glowed and died in the hearth. Elsie focused on the last red embers, winking out like eyes as Will entered her his groan stifled just enough to keep them secret but the tone of it deep and desperate. He thrust into her hard, his hand firm on her breast, grasping and kneading, the heat of his breath and slick wet of his tongue in her ear, on her neck and each tiny utterance so quiet she knew that only she could hear.

Elsie pushed backwards, squeezing him tight between her body and the wall of stone behind him, his movements already ragged from nights of supressed need as his family slept nearby. Elsie’s own wants had barely touched her, so preoccupied had she been but now the feel of him thick and hard inside her had her turning her face to their shared pillow and biting her lips hard. She heard Will groan so lowly she felt it in her back and then his hand moved quickly down, parting her, finding her wet and full. Elsie grabbed at his wrist urgently pushed him to her just so, clamped her other hand upon the side of their cot and prayed the sound of their joined movement was not as loud as it seemed to her then, each pant and creak harsh and echoing in the empty tomb.

Will was trying to move her forward and away, his finish rushing on him, and the sound at his throat desperate. She felt his hips buck but held on to him insistent and needy.

‘Elsie… wait… I…’ she arched under the touch of his fingers with a soft cry and the breath punched suddenly out of him, his hand seizing over her belly and his face buried in her hair. She felt his hips thrust twice, three times and then he fell still, his breathing shallow and rapid and the heat of him softening inside her as she held him to her.

‘Elsie… Lord we shouldn’t… I’m sorry I couldn’t… let me…’ he made to move, but she held him tight.

‘Don’t let go,’ she said verging on inexplicable tears once more, ‘Please, don’t let go of me.’

He seemed to hesitate a moment, ’Elsie, what is it, are you all right, did I do something wrong…? I’m so sorry, please don’t be upset with me, a chap can’t always well… I try but… it’ll be all right you’ll see…’ he rambled on oblivious but earnest, soothing sounds with kind intent.

The pillow was wet beneath her cheek now, but she couldn’t place the feeling. It was not sorrow, or even fear, confusion or uncertainty. She just wanted him to hold her, she wanted to be part of him a moment longer. He was everything and she thought she had known it already but lying there in the dark, with the life they made inside her, she realised she had never known at all. This feeling, this thing she had created with him, _this_ was all, but it was a terrifying overwhelming thing that she could not find the words for.

Her mind rushed on despite her sated body. Will smoothed her hair and curled his arms about her until her tears dried and oblivious sleep took him in a way that it denied to her. As his embrace grew heavy, she took his hand and pressed it to her belly, imagined the little life inside her.

She would have to tell him, and he would stand by her, ever courageous, ever the Protector. He would protect both of them from whatever lay ahead, and the knowledge of their child’s existence would push him further into danger than he had ever gone before. He would give anything for their safety, risk it all for the love of them long after duty ended. Lydia was right, he would never let them down.

So, Elsie couldn’t tell him. Not yet. She had to keep him safe.

The last of the fire’s embers faded, its shadow lingering, a bright ghost in the darkness of her vision. All around her now was Will. His skin, his scent, the sound of each soft breath. The world was made of him.

Tomorrow the dark mouth of their sanctuary would open and they would travel north.


	23. Chapter 23

Elsie hugged her shawl about her as she watched Lydia that morning, the sun just cresting over the curve of the meadow and the first of its red rays refracting in the crystal Charity’s sister held. It dangled on a chain of gold, spinning softly in the breeze, a canary in a magical cage, showing the presence of exactly nothing frightening at all.

Minutes before Lydia had lifted the ward upon the dome and crept out into the last moments of darkness. The night had been silent, no howling ghosts or unsettling sounds scratching like claws over the stonework. Now her talisman confirmed the family’s suspicions; whatever powered the creatures who had attacked them was weakened and gone. It was time to leave before something else arrived.

Lydia stashed the crystal in her apron and stood hands upon hips watching the sunrise. In its richness her brown hair shone as red as her daughter’s, hidden strands of gold and copper in the curls, brought to life with the warm light. Elsie watched her strong back and shoulders in silence unsure how to broach the subject of their departure.

‘I’ll fetch the horses,’ Lydia said suddenly and with an odd sort of conviction to her tone. ‘Innkeeper’ll be glad to be shot of them I think, he was just doing me a favour for an extra loaf. Story of my life, that.’

‘I’ll be glad to see them,’ Elsie said, surprising herself by how much she meant it. She had rather missed Zuse’s stubborn stupidity. He was reliable enough when it mattered but there was a certain humour and charm about him too. More vitally she knew Will missed Aro terribly, his constant companion from before Elsie had shattered his world with her Curse, and a source of meditative peace whenever he could find a moment to tend to him.

‘Mm,’ Lydia agreed, the syllable short and strained.

‘And you’ll be glad to get back to normal,’ Elsie ventured. ‘It must be a strain with us both here, dangerous for one thing, even you don’t normally have to live in a crypt.’

‘I’m a Priestess of the Red Sun, Elsie I’m here every week more or less… wandering dead don’t care where I sleep or when they just need putting back into their boxes.’

‘Yes of course, but still… you’ll be able to go home freely, those things Adato captured are after us not you.’

‘We’ll come with you to the caravan today,’ Lydia said, ‘it’s not far, if we make good time we can get back by nightfall and besides I want to set a ward.’

‘You’ve shown me how, I can protect us tonight.’

‘No,’ Lydia turned a little sharply. ‘I want to do it.’

She would not look at Elsie, but stood, her shoulders silhouetted against the rising sun and her head just slightly bowed.

‘Well I mean, you’ve done so much already with the supplies, and we’ll need to go on foot, the horses can’t carry it all and ourselves…’ Elsie started ticking off the practicalities she had discussed with Will.

‘Please,’ Lydia added quietly. ‘We can walk, and Sandy has more energy than any child I know. Just… let us do this last thing as a family. You’ll both be out of my reach soon enough.’

The pain was tangible. Robust no nonsense Lydia, who fought off gossip and disgruntled undead in equal measures from her strange dome on the hill, whose magic could repel the possessed, whose hidden life was isolation itself, was on the verge of breaking. Lydia who despite her resentment for the Protected who had taken him, had followed her brother into the Order out of love and loyalty to the boy who was her childhood hero. Lydia who worked in darkness for his cause, who had never expected anything, not to see him, not to hear him speak her name, and certainly not to watch her own child love him as fiercely as she did herself, now had him in her grasp at last like a long longed for gift. Through all of it she had needed only the memory of her brother to see her through and now she had to let him go. Again.

Elsie saw her eyes plead with her for the smallest moment, proud, frightened, desperate.

‘You’ll be at the next Hall tomorrow night,’ Lydia said, ‘You can use the ward I taught you there but tonight…’

‘Yes, you’re right,’ Elsie said quickly, ‘Your magic will be stronger, absolutely, I should have thought.’

‘You’re exposed in the caravan,’ Lydia reasoned. ‘I can add a glamour, disguise your whereabouts.’

‘Yes, of course, you’re more skilled in that area than I.’

The pair nodded and there was a beat of silence during which Lydia pressed her lips together very hard indeed and sniffed. Finally, she let her arms fall by her sides.

‘Right, I’ll go and get the nags then,’ she said, ‘You go and wake up his Lordship, he can’t lay there snoring all morning we need to get on.’ She turned and started her way down the incline, back to village and Elsie watched a minute longer, the sun growing higher, the landscape changing and Lydia’s figure turning to shadow in the outskirts of the village.

She thought of the days to come, of Charity’s sister working in the bakery, of Sandy playing in the square, showing her friends the silly tricks her uncle had taught her. She thought of the silence from the North Lydia would endure, and the secret she had to kept for years to maintain her brother’s safety. The secret she kept now to protect Elsie and the baby, her loyalty apparently absolute despite the pain the Curse had caused her. Elsie wondered when exactly she would see her or Sandy again, _if_ she would ever see them and it hurt to think of it. When they parted the little girl would cry and Lydia…

Lydia would be brave just like her brother.

‘It was easier when you hated me,’ Elsie said sadly.

‘What’s that?’ Will asked emerging from the dome, his hair at odd angles and several days beard grow shadowing his face. He seized her hips from behind and dropped his chin onto her shoulder. ‘Who is my little worm talking to?’ he said peppering her bare skin with kisses.

‘Will you please stop calling me that, you’re the worm,’ Elsie said, ‘And will you please shave,’ she shoved him away, ‘You’re all scratchy.’

‘Ah well you may have to get used to that,’ he admitted, ‘All part of the disguise, which I may add will be revealed today when we get to the caravan! Now isn’t that an exciting prospect?’ he grinned at her expectantly. Elsie held his gaze until his smile faltered just a little. ‘Gosh you really can be quite cruel to a chap,’ he said, deflating, ‘But never fear, once you see it you will be utterly enraptured, I assure you! I say have you seen a cape lying about?’

‘A cape,’ Elsie said dryly.

‘Yes, you know, big black cape, silken lining? No, never mind there’s one at the…’

‘Caravan,’ she finished. ‘Everything is at this blasted caravan. It’s all you’ve spoken of for days.’

‘Yes, that’s the spirit! It’s all waiting there most like.’ She watched him draw his belt a notch tighter and tuck in his shirt. ‘Lyds must be getting the ponies?’ he said. ‘She’s up at at ‘em today is she not, I heard her rustling about long before dawn.’

‘Yes.’

‘Goodo,’ he pushed up his sleeves.

‘Will...’

‘Hmm.’

‘I like her very much, you know,’

‘Well that is a relief, make it all so much simpler if you two aren’t at one another throats, though it does seem to mean you like to gang up on me as a pastime instead,’ Will splashed his face with water from a pail and ran his fingers through his unruly hair. ‘Luckily old Charity here has fended off worse combatants!’

‘I think she misses you terribly, I mean I think she is going to miss you terribly when we go, worse than before,’ Elsie said. ‘It just feels so cruel, to leave like this, to cut all ties again.’

Will paused, water falling in droplets from his nose and chin and catching the rising sun. For a moment he did not move, just stood like a glistening statue of precious gold in the morning light.

‘I will miss her too,’ he said, ‘I _have_ missed all of them, for years. Lydia, Hannah, various cousins, even my father sometimes, though that’s harder to believe I know.’

‘Well, maybe when this is over, we could…’

‘No,’ he said sharply. ‘You never think like that, never… _never_ allow yourself to think like that. What ifs and maybes. That’s how disappointment happens and the moment that slips in you’re vulnerable. We aren’t like other people Elsie, we can’t afford to be. I love them dearly, but family has no place in any of this. These last few days have been priceless, and I am so, _so_ grateful you cannot even know, but equally we cannot risk a repeat.’

‘Will, please just consider, just a letter, a note to say we are well.’

‘A note can be traced and there can be no traces. No associations. We need to put as many miles between them and us as possible for their own safety. You understand? Yes?’ he looked up at her, a towel clutched in one hand and a wet curl hanging at his brow.

‘But if we defeat Adato, if we stop this then surely…’ Elsie tried.

‘There will be something else,’ Will said forcefully, ’There always is. You don’t think I have been here before? You don’t think I’ve tried to see them, tried to get word to and from my family. It ends badly, Elsie, every single time. You’re the Protected, and no matter transpires with this latest venture, it is never over, not until one or both of us is dead,’ he swiped his face roughly, the emotions he kept so well hidden by his cavalier humour threatening to boil and burst within him and the content of his speech shaking her. ‘I’m sorry but we are never going to be safe,’ he said softly, ‘As hard as I might try.’

Elsie stepped towards him, driven to lay a hand upon him and somehow sooth his anguish.

‘Lydia knows and accepts the risks, Will, her role as Priestess isn’t safe in itself. But even so I think she needs you in her life, I thinks she wants you there. She would take her chances, she is so alone, Will, you know how that feels.’

‘She has Sandy for God’s sake!’

‘She needs more than Sandy!’

‘That’s not what I mean!’ Will ground out.

‘Then what?’

‘She is a child, a _child,_ Elsie! You think I want to drag a child into this world? You think I could put a child at risk? My own blood? No, God no, I could never forgive myself for putting her in danger. I’ve seen the way she looks up to me like I’m some sort of hero, well let her think it, but be it at a distance for the truth will only hurt her.’

The words were a gut punch and faltering Elsie could say nothing. She watched as he dropped the towel onto the table, took a deep and aching breath and glanced down the hill. Elsie looked too, found Lydia astride Aro and leading Zuse. Gradually Will’s face softened at the sight and he tried to gather himself.

‘Well, would you look at that,’ he said, ‘He never lets anyone ride him, always thought he was a one-man horse. I mean he quite likes you obviously but, look at her go, mounted him no less!’ He chuckled, a strangely sad sound in the context and watched the scene with the assiduous attention to detail a man might make if he knew he would never get the chance again.

Elsie knew that look, she’d seen it on Lydia’s face as Will entertained her daughter and it was nothing short of absolute adoration cast in the sadness of inevitable parting. Elsie rubbed his arm gently. Brother and sister, both travelling in opposite directions, meeting at their one shared crossing, trying to frame the memory forever.

‘Go and help her, I’ll start breakfast,’ Elsie prompted. ‘Go on, Zuse can dig his heels in she might need you.’

‘Oh, no I… there’s lots to do, I’m sure she can manage them they seem quite…’ he cleared his throat.

‘Go, Will.’

He looked at her sideways lips parted before he nodded faintly. ‘Yes, all right,’ he conceded. ‘A little sibling time, eh? Right, yes…’ and he moved past her, painting his brave face as he trotted down the hill to meet his sister.

It was only a few miles. Will on foot led Aro, who was laden with supplies, while Sandy and her boundless enthusiasm ran ahead and to the side and round corners and circumvented trees, returning like an aboriginal throwing stick to the adults and the horses barely scant of breath. She did eventually settle to some extent after the second mile but decided at that point that what the increasingly silent and distracted grown ups needed to raise their spirits was a rousing chorus of _Old MacDonald_ followed in quick succession by _Jack and Jill_ going up a hill at around about the same time that Zuse was puffing up a slope with Elsie on his back.

‘I’m not that heavy,’ she grumbled ignoring the glance Lydia gave her and her knowingly cocked eyebrow. ‘The horse has lost condition,’ she protested, ‘He has been stabled nigh on a week. He’s a lazy swine.’

Lydia made sniffed wetly and muttered. Elsie leaned down to her slightly.

‘In truth does it make one expand so quickly? Am I frightfully heavier than before?’ she asked quietly.

‘No you great fool!’ Lydia cackled, ‘Tis a baby, not an anchor made of lead! You are but weeks gone.’

‘Hush!’

‘Sorry,’ Lydia giggled. ‘But honestly for a healer you seem to know so little of the realities.’

‘Well how would I know, it hasn’t happened to me!’

‘What’s all the commotion ladies?’ Will turned from where he was leading Aro. He was by now some yards ahead and to his credit had manfully been enduring Sandy’s singing for a full hour. ‘Please do feel free to share,’ he added, ‘Please?’ he tipped his head in his niece’s direction with such a look of ‘Mercy!’ that Lydia tugged on Zuse’s reins and had him pick up the pace enough to catch him.

‘Are we there yet?’ Sandy asked.

‘Another mile or two,’ Will answered.

‘You said it was another mile or so a mile or so ago.’

Will looked down at her under his top hat with barely contained irritation. ‘Since when were you such an expert on distance?’ he asked.

‘Patience, Alexandra,’ Lydia said, ‘It’s not far.’

‘My name is Sandy. Sandy, Sandy, Sandy, Sandy,’ and she took off down the lane again at speed.

‘Help me,’ Will pleaded with the two women. ‘I fear we are running out of nursery rhymes and I am developing a headache.’

‘I think you’re doing marvellously,’ Lydia said. ‘A natural.’

Will rolled his eyes. ‘She’s worse that even you were, and you were ghastly.’

‘I was not…! Oh Will!’ she ducked under Zuse’s head to come to Will’s side and shove him in the shoulder.

‘She was terrible,’ Will confided to Elsie.

‘Not as terrible as Hannah,’ Lydia argued, ‘By the time she reached seven she had every neighbour marching her home of an evening for pinching apples or climbing trees, you must remember the time she was in the vicarage…’ Lydia stopped suddenly. Will fiddled with his reins and patted Aro’s cheek.

‘I’d been gone years by then I suspect,’ he said quietly. ‘Last I remember she was just a toddler.’

‘Well just imagine Alexandra but more curly headed and mischievous,’ Lydia said gently.

‘An unholy terror then,’ he said trying to rally.

‘Exactly. Far worse than me. Much more like you I’d say.’

‘Ah, now that isn’t fair, you weren’t even born until I was at school! You have no idea what I was like. I could have been a veritable cherub!’

‘Cherub indeed. I’ve heard the stories!’

‘Oh?’ Elsie said from her saddle, keen to steer the conversation somewhere much less melancholy.

‘What stories!?’ Will said.

‘What stories he says,’ Lydia said. ‘As if Will Charity is not followed by stories _everywhere_ he goes and he loves it too. Of course, he wasn’t Will _Charity_ back then…’

‘Ah, that’s true I suppose,’ he admitted, his chin ducking down into the folds of his cravat. ‘Just plain Will. A much more innocent time.’ Elsie watched his eyes crinkle.

‘What was your name?’ she asked him. ‘You’ve never said. Just that you left it behind when you came to our estate.’

Will said nothing for a moment before Lydia cut in craning her neck up at Elsie.

‘Carroll,’ she said, ‘Our surname was Carroll. It means champion in battle, valorous defender. From the Gaelic. The Red Sun is steeped in Celtic legend and language, you saw the Arcana, our ancestors probably chose it for that reason.’

‘Ha,’ Will said, ‘Yes… ‘valorous defender’… it never really felt very…’ he shrugged. ‘Anyway, as I said father didn’t want me to be associated with it and to be honest it was a bit of a heroic mantle for a skinny homeless boy to carry. The Carrolls were very well known in our county and I didn’t want to be known at all.’

‘So, my mother gave you Charity instead. And you liked it? As a name I mean?’

‘It was something other than violent acts and fighting prowess to aspire to, which was all the Protector had ever been about as far as I understood it at the time,’ he said. ‘As virtues go, Charity was one I could be proud of, a worthy example to set,’ he glanced up at her. ‘Kindness is a good deal more commendable than bravery in battle, don’t you think?’

‘You have kindness _and_ courage both, Will,’ Elsie said. She saw his cheeks dimple in a self-conscious smile, the kind that was not all pearly teeth and camaraderie and which she recognised as uniquely belonging to her.

The horses clopped on and Elsie’s mind drifted, to Will in his youth, to the sisters he left behind, to a little girl in an Egyptian Temple who had once put her faith in him to save her.

_Stars in a midnight sky. A red moon rising. Dark eyes in the cracks between the clouds, deep and beautiful. They sparkled with longing and life._

_Wait for me._

Elsie started in the saddle.

‘Sandy, Sandy, Sandy, Sandy,’ the child hurtled back from wherever she had reached before having apparently not moved on a pace from declaring her preferred nickname. ‘Is the caravan red and blue and green and gold and…’

‘Why yes! I think you may have found it,’ Will chuckled. Sandy jumped on the spot in the middle of the lane.

‘Hurry, hurry come and see, it’s so _pretty_.’

Elsie rubbed her eyes, the vision fading.

‘I should go ahead and catch her,’ Will said handing Aro’s reins to Lydia, ‘Sandy! Sandy, old chap stay there!’ The girl halted at the bend of the lane. ‘Don’t go running ahead there’s a good little soldier, let me scout ahead and on my signal,’ he reached her and clasped her shoulders, ‘You may join me, but not before, you hear? Jolly good. Won’t be a jiffy.’

And he disappeared leaving Sandy standing to comical attention and awaiting his command.

‘She just does everything he says!’ Lydia grumbled, ‘Years I’ve been trying to get her to behave. He’s here three days and has her eating out of his palm.’

‘He’s her favourite uncle. I believe that is the law,’ Elsie observed.


	24. Chapter 24

The caravan was not a subtle mode of transport. Will spent a half hour or so pulling weeds and bramble branches and tussocks out from over and around it while the women unloaded the horses and Sandy ran about singing _Humpty Dumpty_. Once it was revealed it turned out to be quite possibly the most decorative rounded caravan of Romany gypsy heritage that Elsie had ever seen whether in life or illustration but as exquisite as it was it did rather draw attention to itself.

Comfortably able to sleep a family of four if the travellers were not opposed to topping and tailing and the bunks were suitably aligned, its magnificent curved ceiling stretched high and was painted in reds and greens. The sides were done in yellow and stencilled with flowers. The props which attached to the horses were equally as ornate. Not an inch was without artistic flair. Inside was no less decadent with tapestries and decorated cushions. There were actual curtains in the cut out squares for windows and a red stable door at the back which, when the shuttered half swung open would ensure a cooling breeze on a hot day. A lamp swung from the ceiling. It looked very much like a brass candelabra.

Inside Will delved about and found various pots pans cooking implements and daily necessities. There was a hefty box of something called ‘Bismillah’s Miracle Elixir’ and another called ‘Katarina’s Potent Potion,’ which were both heaved out and set around a campfire Lydia was building to act as stools or benches. Sandy was given the task of feeding the two horses some hay and then Will vanished inside the multicoloured monstrosity that was now their home and banged the shutters closed with both outstretched arms and a quirky smile upon his lips. The women jumped at the rattling noise and then everything went quiet.

Elsie stared at the back of the caravan.

‘What’s he doing?’ she asked. Lydia stifled a laugh.

‘I can guess but I don’t want to spoil the surprise. Come let’s get a brew on. Sandy are you done with that pair, come and sit, you’ve not stopped all day.’

Sandy skipped over to the Potent Potions and plopped down humming another nursery rhyme under her breath. Behind her the caravan shook a little as a heavy thud came from inside. Elsie brewed tea occasionally casting the thing a suspicious glance. Lydia wouldn’t look at her directly and seemed terribly interested in the bottom of her mug. Over the horizon the sun began to wend its way down to the west.

‘Shouldn’t we be thinking about the ward?’ Elsie said. ‘It’ll be dark in a couple of hours, I’m worried about you getting back. Shouldn’t you stay here tonight? We can probably all squeeze in?’

‘Can we?!’ Sandy exclaimed.

Lydia looked between them.

‘Oh please! Please mother! I’ve never been in a real caravan before!’

Lydia exhaled thoughtfully and looked as though she might be about to argue that it was not a very good idea when a thunder like applause came from the closed shutters.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen! Your attention if I may!’ a theatrical voice boomed as Will banged the walls of the caravan to simulate a drumroll.

‘There’s only girls here, silly!’ Sandy shouted at the vehicle.

‘Ah,’ came Will’s usual voice. ‘Well, all right then… Ladies!’ he boomed. ‘Please make ready to welcome your host for the evening, a man of miracles and magic, mystery and mischief! A man whose reputation stretches many fathoms ahead of his person…’

‘You’re telling me,’ Lydia said, leaning nonchalantly on one fist.

‘A man who will entertain and thrill you like no other, his skills know no bounds, his abilities no limits. Welcome if you would, the Grrrreat Bismillah!’

The top shutters flew open wide and then there was a brief pause as Will kicked the stiffer lower door free while unfurling his arms and blocking the view into the caravan with an enormous black cape lined in red.

‘Ta-da!’ he exclaimed jangling the bangles on his wrists.

Sandy shrieked in delight, jumped off her box and spilled her tea. Lydia doubled over in laughter. Elsie just stared.

Will grinned from beneath a hideous black moustache as wide as his face, waxed and twirled at the tips. His chin was covered in an equally horrific stuck on goatee but his cheeks remained bare but for his own sideburns which he seemed to have darkened with boot polish. He flashed her a grin that looked even whiter against the black, tattered and entirely false beard.

‘Hello, my dears,’ he said in an obscene Eastern European accent of dubious origin. ‘It is I, the Great Bismillah!’ He stepped down out of the caravan taking one painted red step at a time and pointing his shiny boots with precision. His fists rested on his leather clad hips as he moved so that he looked as though he might break into Russian dance at any moment. He tossed his head. A mane of black hair flicked back over his shoulder. His eyebrows, ludicrously enhanced with more of the boot polish waggled suggestively. He pranced towards Elsie and swept into a low bow, taking her hand in his bejewelled fingers and pressing his ticklish beard to her skin.

‘My lady,’ he intoned deeply, looking up at her through kohl eyeliner, ‘I am enchanted.’

The laughter spluttered out of her before she could think how to react.

‘What I God’s name _are_ you?’ she cried.

Bismillah straightened and cast his cape back over his shoulder impetuously. ‘What am I?’ he said, enunciating each syllable comically, and fluttering his fingers, ‘ _Who_ am I? I told you my dear, I am Bismillah, Illusionist, Magician, and,’ he paused to perfect a stage whisper, ‘Purveyor of interesting tonics for the impotent, hmm,’ he winked.

Elsie alternated between gawping and giggling.

‘I think you like Bismillah, no?’ he asked moving behind her, ‘I think you find the accent… alluring, but of course you are a lady and cannot say directly. ‘Is all right. I understand. It happens all the time. I am but a magnet… to the ladies.’

‘Oh Will, pack it in!’ Lydia said, ‘My sides hurt.’

‘Why are you dressed like that?’ Elsie asked.

Bismillah’s shoulders dropped and Will’s incredulous expression could be easily read through his makeup and beard parts.

‘It’s a _disguise_!’ he said exasperated and entirely in his own tones. ‘All these fancy waistcoats and frock coats are repetitive and dull, but _this_ , this is illusion at its finest.’

Elsie squinted, ‘Is that a fake nose?’ she asked.

‘Well, obviously…’ he squeezed the bulbous end of it and adopted Bismillah’s voice again, ‘You like? It is rather on the larger side, no? You know what they say about a man with a great, big nose…’

‘Will!’ Lydia commanded. ‘Alexandra can hear you.’

‘He has a very, very big… handkerchief,’ Bismillah whipped one from his back pocket and finished with a little purse of lips. Sandy clapped her hands and looked at him as though he was an actual miracle as he dropped the silk square into her lap.

‘This is the least artful disguise I’ve ever seen Will and it’s a nonsense,’ Elsie said. ‘I sincerely hope this is purely for our entertainment this evening.’

‘It’s for the journey,’ he said at last in his own voice. ‘The whole ruse depends on this caravan and people believing that we belong to it. We can’t go about the place as a terribly genteel middle-class couple anymore, so we need an alternative and this is it. We can trundle along the back roads with Zuse and Aro towing us. Move between the Dead Halls without people wondering what we are doing there…’

Elsie raised an eyebrow.

‘Gyspies get up to all sorts,’ Will said and lifted his voice an octave to imitate a village gossip, ‘’Oh, I say, who is that on that hillock in the middle of the night, oh never mind its just some gypsies,’ Righto, nobody is worried. It looks a lot less suspicious than Mr and Mrs Newlywed stumbling about a boggy field of a winter evening, some of these Halls are in the most god-awful places, no offence Lyds. If we dress like this nobody will care where we are going or what we are doing, and if anyone does care enough to ask we are selling tonics.’

‘Have we got any tonics?’

‘You can knock some up,’ he said.

‘Did you have to have the beard?’ Elsie challenged.

‘Yes.’

‘It’s awful. It’s like something died on your top lip.’

‘You’ll get used to it.’

‘I don’t want to get used to it.’

‘Well don’t worry it’s not for long.’

‘Thank God.’

‘No my own grows quickly enough, after a couple of weeks I can trade this one for the real thing!’ Will said cheerfully.

‘Wonderful,’ Elsie said.

Will shirked off the cape, ‘And that’s not all!’ he said revealing a scanty leather waistcoat, a strong pair of biceps and a very hairy chest. Elsie appraised him with new eyes as he lifted something from the inside of the caravan and strode over in his tight leather trousers. ‘I have for you a gift, my lady,’ he bowed again.

‘Please stop talking like that, it’s just so… odd.’

‘Open the package then,’ he thrust it at her all brown paper and string. Elsie looked up at him, or rather at the ridiculous monstrosity that was now Will Bismillah Charity and sighed. She sat the parcel on her lap and pulled the ties. There was a peasant blouse, a richly embroidered burgundy bodice and some tiered skirts within. It was all very ornate, and she suspected rather revealing at the neckline, but looking at what Will was wearing she had got off rather lightly.

‘Oh, it’s quite nice,’ she admitted. ‘Comfortable even.’

‘Ah ha you see!’ he said triumphantly and then thrust a wig at her.

‘What is that?’ she shrieked.

‘It’s a wig,’ he stated rather redundantly. Sandy hopped over and started to untangle it in fascination, dark tresses hanging together like too many spiders legs.

‘Urgh,’ she said and backed away leaving it in Elsie’s grasp.

‘Well it needs combing through,’ Will admitted.

‘It’s hideous and I am not wearing it. I’ll do the dress but I draw the line at that. Its horrible. Where did it come from? It looks like a horse’s tail.’

‘It’s real gypsy hair!’ he said.

‘Oh dear Lord!’ Elsie threw it at him.

‘They sell it!’

‘They sell their teeth as well!’ Elsie shot back, ‘Would you like me to wear a set of those too?’

‘Well actually I do have a set around her somewhere that I use for the Great Bismil…’

‘Will!’ Elsie stood up suddenly, ‘That is disgusting and I…’

The world spun, she reached for him, the edges of her vision grey and a wave of nausea flooding over her. She was dimly aware of Lydia springing like lightning from her place and grasping for one arm while Will caught her full against him and then everything went dark.

_Twinkle twinkle little bat_

_How I wonder what you’re at._

The heavily accented voice drifted over her moments before her vision cleared.

_Up above the world so high_

_like a tea tray in the sky._

‘Those aren’t the words, you silly,’ Sandy’s voice laughed.

‘Oh?’ said Will as Bismillah, ‘ Well then you must teach me the right ones! In my country we often sing about the bats!’

‘What in the world…?’ Elsie muttered.

‘How are you?’ Lydia asked and the caravan came into focus. Elsie was laid upon the bunk on one side of the interior, warmly tucked in blankets and her corset loosened. Lydia poured a pitcher of watered wine and handed her a mug. ‘Here, we just let you sleep a little, take this.’

She blinked. ‘It’s dark!’ she struggled to sit up quickly, ‘It’s dark, you shouldn’t be here, there should be a ward in place. What if they find us! Sandy! Will was so worried…’

‘Hush. It’s all taken care of. I’ve set a ward, a glamour, even sprinkled some of your precious herbs about the place. Will’s out front, he has a couple of pistols strapped to him under that stupid cape and Sandy… I mean my Alexandra,’ she corrected herself, ‘She knows what to do. It’s all all right, I promise just rest.’

‘What happened?’

‘What do you think?’ Lydia nodded at her belly. Elsie felt sheer terror rush through her.

‘No! It’s all right isn’t it, the baby it’s…’

‘It’s fine,’ Lydia held her wrist. ‘But a long day of travel, little to eat, heated arguments with silly men in wigs no matter how entertaining can take it out of a lady when she’s.. you know…’ she raised her eyebrows.

‘Does he know?’

‘No, I’ve said nothing just said you were faint from the exertion.’

‘I rode all the way, I hardly did a thing, it’s ridiculous I shouldn’t feel like this, I am with child not unwell.’

‘Well that’s no ordinary baby you carry, now is it, who knows how it might affect you,’ Lydia mused and sipped her wine. ‘Take a few more minutes and rest, there’s a love.’

Elsie lay back again against the pillows, her eyes travelling to the open shutters and the evening beyond. Dusk had fallen and the sky was streaked in shades of purple and lilac. The trees cast dark outlines on the horizon. The campfire was burning, and she could see Will sitting where he could get a view of both directions on the road, still dressed as his silly magician but more watchful than she had possibly ever seen him. Everything he loved was close and yet she knew that he, and a handful of magic, was all that stood between that little family and whatever hunted them. Even surrounded by them he must feel utterly alone with that burden.

Sandy’s light voice carried the nursery rhyme around their camp.

_Twinkle twinkle little star_

_How I wonder what you are_

_Up above the world so high_

_Like a diamond in the sky!_

‘Ah I see it is a star!’ Bismillah said.

‘Stop doing the voice,’ Sandy pleaded. Lydia giggled into her wine.

‘Really? Oh,’ Will sounded disappointed. ‘Well if you don’t like the voice how about this. The stars! Look here above us, do you see they are starting to shine now, as the colours of the sky are changing, you can see them peeking out. They are with us all the time you know, even in the day, but the suns light blocks them from our view, and we don’t know they are there. That’s the second verse you see of _Twinkle Twinkle_ …’

‘There’s a second?’ Sandy asked.

‘Oh yes!’ Will said his voice betraying just how pleased with himself that he had revealed a new thing to his knowledgeable niece. ‘And a third in fact though it is a long time since I have heard them myself.’

‘Can you sing them please, uncle?’

‘Can I use the voice?’

‘No.’

Elsie heard him sigh dramatically. ‘Well, all right, as it’s for my most special niece. Now listen carefully, old chap, I’ll see what I can recall.’ Beside him Sandy’s shadow inched closer to him as the night grew cool. Will slipped an arm and half his cape about her shoulder.

_When the blazing sun is gone_

_When he nothing shines upon_

_Then you shower your little light_

_Twinkle twinkle all the night_

Elsie had never heard him sing more than snatches and hardly knew the quality of his voice, but it was deeper than she might have expected and perfectly pitched. Beside her Lydia watched too, perhaps remembering a happier time when her older brother sang nursery rhymes to sooth her or their baby sister. Simpler times, before the Curse, before he lost his family and before they lost him. Times he held dear in his memory. Family. He needed his family. Suddenly that knowledge meant so much more to her and was so much harder to bear.

Elsie felt the tears track down her cheeks as the moments passed. The song went on, the sky grew darker; the stars brighter, revealing themselves as the sun vanished. That was to say, all but one, one tiny star more important than any and to which Will was oblivious. The tears came thick and fast and by the final verse Charity’s sister had to hold her tight against her shoulder to quieten her sobs.

_Then the traveller in the dark_

_Thanks you for your tiny spark_

_He could not see which way to go_

_If you did not twinkle so._

‘You have to tell him,’ Lydia said. ‘It isn’t fair, he has to know. Wait until we leave if you must, but you cannot keep this from him. I’m begging you Elsie, please, tell him.’


	25. Chapter 25

_These are the hands of your closest friend, the hands that will work to build your future. With the slightest touch they comfort you, with strength they will hold you when grief fills your heart. These are the hands that will wipe your tears; tears of sorrow and of joy, solace when all else fails you._

The words echoed as the horses trundled on along the back lanes of the county, heading North; Elsie in peasant blouse and skirts and Will as yet not in full costume, but decked out in leather trousers and a shining forest green jerkin, bound at his waist with an elaborate red tie. He looked every inch the mysterious magician but a good deal more handsome that he had been the night before, the ridiculous wig and beard abandoned and his lashes dark with kohl. After the ceremony that morning and his sister’s departure with his niece, all the fun of the fayre had grown sombre. The smudged shadows about his eyes hinted at another kind of darkness and sorrow.

Lydia had sprung it on them both at sunrise, a parting gift, a blessing. Tousled from sleep she called Will and Elsie under the shedding canopy of an autumn oak and bid them hold one another’s hands, while Sandy, a sprig of heather fastened to her apron strap, presented to her mother a ribbon in white.

Will had raised his eyebrows, been silenced with a look; his sister’s whole demeanour quite different in the morning light, a talisman about her neck and a heavy white scarf draped around her neck, falling to her hips, emblazoned with the symbols of the Order. He stood face to face with Elsie and reached for her, his eyes barely able to meet her and shining too brightly.

_These are the hands that will takes yours on your marriage day, that you will reach for in the night, that will hold your family close and keep them safe…_

Lydia had slipped the satin around their wrists, bound them with a bow and with her magic, the soft glow growing visible against the creeping pink sunrise as something pure and golden. Warmth wrapped around Elsie’s and inched up to her heart, the reflection of the spell shining in Charity’s pupils as he bent to kiss her.

_These are the hands that will hold you to the last, with tenderness, with passion, you will reach for them in your darkest hour; cherish these hands in all the time to come, for love has bound them to one another, and none shall part them, in the blessed light of the Red Sun._

‘… of course by then the creature had set his sights upon me and was making a beeline across the very banks of Nile, but I had done my research. Did you know those things can only run in straight lines? So simple really. So I set out in a zig zag formation across the valley and no doubt looked a bloody fool as I danced in and out of its wake but… Elsie… _Elsie_?’

She looked across at him through a haze of emotion. The pair were perched on the driver’s ledge at the front of the caravan, one of its square windows open above their heads and the curtains occasionally catching in the breeze.

‘You all right?’ Will asked, ‘You been a little distracted all morning.’

‘Oh… yes,’ she said unable to keep the uncertainty from her voice.

Will quickly dashed the crestfallen expression from his face. ‘Probably still trying to work out what got into Lyds eh?’ he said lightly and looked away.

‘As mornings go you must agree that this has been an eventful one,’ Elsie said. She looked down at her left wrist, upon which half the white ribbon was now tied having been officially divided into two after the ceremony. She caught Will glancing at his own wrist, the bow half hidden under his voluminous black shirt sleeve and its decorative cuff.

‘Yes,’ he conceded, ‘It’s not every day a chap…’ he hesitated.

‘Gets married?’

‘Well it’s not really… I mean gosh I didn’t ask her to…’

‘Will!’

‘Not that I wouldn’t ask, if the time was right,’ he added.

Elsie looked back at the road. Will made a show of flicking the reins to encourage Aro and Zuse to pick up pace. The two horses stalwartly ignored him ,and he slumped back against the caravan wall.

‘We still aren’t married in the eyes of the law,’ he said, ‘And I would want to do these things… properly,’ he admitted quietly, ‘Should I get the chance. In a … church or… something.’

‘You. In a church?’ Elsie asked drily. She saw his lip twitch.

‘Well for society’s sake,’ he started.

‘That doesn’t matter!’

He raised his eyebrows at her, exaggerated still from kohl pencil and bootpolish that he could not quite rinse off.

‘Well it doesn’t,’ Elsie said. ‘We have bigger problems than whether we hold a marriage certificate in the eyes of the Queen. I liked the ceremony and Lydia is a Priestess, so that’s as official as it can get if you ask me.’

‘Yes but,’ Will said, ‘It was still just a blessing for our journey.’

‘That was a wedding ceremony!’ Elsie said. ‘You cannot deny it. The word ‘marriage’ was even mentioned within the vows.’

‘Those were not vows, but well wishes, and I believe marriage was referred to in the future tense,’ Will argued petulantly.

‘There was a hand binding Will, the most pagan of joining ceremonies you could wish for, regardless of the words spoken.’

‘Ah now hand binding ceremonies are very common in a lot of cultures but if you look into their history they don’t always mean…’

‘Will!’ Elsie warned again and prodded him. There was a strange bashfulness to his expression as she teased him. A hopefulness he dare not quite realise without her express permission.

‘Technically that was a blessing from the Arcana,’ he went on, ‘A sort of pre-nuptial if you like, a blessing from the Order that should we wish to be joined then…’

‘Don’t you want to be married? We were ‘married’ before, you bought me a ring, told me I had fat fingers.’

He snorted. ‘Yes, but…’

Elsie glared at him. ‘You are on shaky ground, Charity,’ she said and he giggled delightfully. She waited for his shoulders to stop wiggling.

‘Why won’t you just admit it,’ she said, ‘We were married this morning, we even had a flower girl.’

Beside her Will’s face became peaceful under the mask of confidence he usually wore. He smiled to himself and his cheeks dimpled before he looked back at her from under his lashes.

‘All right well in that case, I am delighted to be your husband,’ he said lingering on the word. Elsie patted his knee.

‘Well thank God for that,’ she said, ‘Because Lydia and I weren’t giving you any option. Not that I knew about it, but once I worked out what she was doing…’

‘You decided to let her bully me into it eh? Ha! Women!’

‘You didn’t put up a lot of resistance and of the two of us I believe you were the one who became a little tearful.’

Will pouted and suddenly became terribly interested in the passing hedgerow. ‘I never wanted to simply assume it would be what you actually wanted,’ he said awkwardly, ‘Especially after the last few weeks. I haven’t exactly been able to give you a smooth start to holy matrimony, have I? Look at our honeymoon, hmm? A different inn each night, a different _name_! Undead pursuing us at the command of a necromancer from my own somewhat shady past.’

Elsie looked at him sympathetically and that made him laugh again.

‘I’m trying to be serious,’ he said, ‘And I’m not terribly good at that in general but what I‘m saying is it was all a bit of a ruse before, a sham marriage, part of our disguise and a ring does not a marriage make.’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ Elsie conceded.

‘But that changed. Rather quickly for this old fellow and this… that ceremony,’ he stumbled, ‘It felt…’ he stopped again.

Elsie edged closer to him and slipped her hand onto his thigh.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I’m not at my most erudite today, I think perhaps the last few days have unsettled me more than I like to admit what with Lyds and all…’ he chewed his lip.

‘I know,’ Elsie said. ‘I’m going to miss them too. It all seems so much more serious now. A lot of things in the last few days have served to remind us both of exactly the difficulties we face, that you face Will, because of me.’

‘We are one another’s curse, Elsie Fitzjames.’

‘Charity,’ she said. ‘Elsie Charity.’

Will smiled, ‘You know you aren’t going to be referred to as such possibly for eons.’

‘Oh, I know, I fully expect to be Mrs Boldwood or Mrs Masters for time immemorial but I will think of myself as yours, as Mrs Charity.’

Will took a moment to look terribly pleased with himself then switched the reins to one hand and brought her close by the waist until she could rest her head upon his shoulder.

‘You are my priority Elsie,’ Will said sitting up a little straighter behind her and trying to inject a little more levity to his tone. ‘Always have been. And as for all this recent family business, I’ll be all right, I _am_ all right, you’ll see.’

‘It must be so hard to let them go again.’

‘I would not choose to be anywhere else.’

‘That doesn’t mean you don’t hurt to see them go. I don’t expect you to just forget…’

‘I can assure you I am not capable of such a thing,’ he said a little defensively, ‘I am hardly likely to forget my own blood but equally you must remember what you are to me…’ he stroked her hair a little and planted an abrupt kiss on the crown of her head.

‘The Protector’s duty…’

‘I don’t do this out of duty anymore,’ he said quickly and looked out across the fields. She saw his jaw tense and relax as he spoke. ‘I do this because I love you and as picturesque as that ceremony was, words and pretty gestures don’t count for much out here, not in the world I live in, that you must live in now. Whether Lydia had sprung that on us or not, I already knew my priorities. I don’t need a bit of ribbon to make a promise to you, I promise with my life and soul to keep you safe, because I could not bear any other outcome.’

There was a pause during which she felt him calm again behind her, the tumult of his emotions withdrawing deep inside the all too often closed box that was William Charity.

‘Well it might have been just a gesture, but I thought it was lovely,’ Elsie said after a while.

‘Girls like that sort of thing,’ he said, and she rolled her eyes. ‘Sandy was thrilled I imagine, even if she is a little tom boy.’

‘Yes, she was,’ Elsie fiddled with her bow. ‘But I meant for your sister to do it, to give us her blessing before she had to leave. She cares for you very much and I think it meant a lot to her that she could do that. It was as much for her as it was for us, Will, that’s what a marriage ceremony is about, the celebration of Love itself, not of the couple it joins. We were as blessed to find her as we were to find one another and those few minutes celebrated the love a family shares.’

She felt him squeeze her waist, but he said nothing, a tell-tale tension in the muscles of his chest at her back. Elsie leaned against the warmth of him and gave him time. Looked out across the passing landscape with the image of Lydia and her daughter making their way back down the road to Sherburn still vivid in her mind. Sandy skipping at her mother’s side and Lydia turning to glance back one last time as they crested the horizon.

It made her feel sad and stricken in waves.

There was something haunting about the composition of Elsie’s recollection in that moment. A level of detail too intricate, a beat of time too long and it brought a tightness to her chest she could not simply breathe away. If it had been one of her visions, she would have sworn that the portrait of Lydia’s expression captured in that memory was the last of her she would ever see, but it was not a vision, was it? Just the picture of a moment, laden with emotion.

She shook off the goosebumps on her skin and blamed the turning weather. The fall of leaves once merely golden, now brownly carpeting the ground. The fields empty of their crops and turned for winter. A land turning empty after the richness of summer, a world full of loss. It was too easy to see that loss, of places, things and people, but somewhere inside her something new was growing and perhaps it would provide the antidote to a dying cooling world.

_You have to tell him._

Tonight then. Tonight, as they lay together she would tell Will about the baby as Lydia suggested. Perhaps it would make him worry but increasingly she felt as though he would already die for her protection, so it might also give him hope and strength. The afternoon rumbled by, the sun crossing the skies above. They were a few miles out from the first of their stopping points, a Hall of the Dead just at the border that Lydia assured was well equipped and headed by a particularly knowledgeable Priestess.

Once again Elsie would have to sleep within a crypt for her safety, listen to the predictions of a wise woman from the Order, eat from a shared meal brewed within a cauldron. The Order would be sure to greet her politely enough, but she doubted very much the warmth she had found in Sherburn could be repeated. That had been a reunion, this was just a journey. Where Lydia welcomed them with love, others would meet her from duty. Before she had known of the child, she had wondered often what would happen if she refused to run, if she took her chances, afraid or not. If she simply stopped and faced the enemy with what magic she could muster, with what skill Charity had at his command.

But that was not an option so run she would, and perhaps if she told Will they would run a little faster than before and outstrip the thing that hunted them. Perhaps there would be life after all of this.

‘Another mile I’d say,’ Will said as the evening light grew golden and deepened. ‘We’ll make it in good time. There it is, just there.’

Elsie looked in the direction he had indicated. At the dark curve of a dome upon a hill and the sky turning purple with nightfall. Above the Hall of the Dead a single bright star was making itself known through the dusk and the nursery rhyme from the evening before floated through Elsie’s mind, bringing a sudden certain sense of joy to fill her heart.

_He could not tell which way to go,_

_If you did not twinkle so._

Little star. A baby was blessing. God, the deities, or the Red Sun itself had intervened to bring them a child; the Order and Will’s family had blessed their union and now at once she knew the time was right. She never should have doubted.

‘I have something to tell you later,’ Elsie said from his shoulder, her arm resting across his belly and her hand on his hip. Her body shifted rhythmically with the movement of the horses, adapting to the sway and wobble of the wooden wheels, rising and falling on the tide of Charity’s slow breath.

Will turned and read her upturned face with curiosity, but not one inch of tension. ‘Well, now, if whatever it is, has caused that sparkle in your eyes, I shall be very glad to hear it.’ He kissed her lips softly, the taste of him lingering and his embrace keeping her secure. Elsie watched his profile as his eyes returned to the horizon, ‘Jolly good,’ he said with a little smile.

Charity flicked the reins and the caravan began its climb to the Dead Hall.


	26. Chapter 26

‘Um,’ said Charity.

Elsie waited by his side. Behind her Aro and Zuse pawed at the mud upon which their caravan was parked. The moon had risen, the last scraps of the sunset were low above the horizon and the stars were out in force. Nightfall was not a thing to be celebrated while still out in the open.

‘Will,’ she urged, ‘We need to get inside.’

He strode off the left a little, his eyes on the domed hall nested in the hillside. He tapped its wall with his cane as he progressed around its curved base. Elsie rubbed her arms and bounced on her toes. The cold night was coming in fast, but the cool air did not worry her. Rather whatever ghouls that might come with it. She glanced over her shoulder at the road they had left behind. No village close by this Hall of the Dead, no sign of life for miles and no protection yet in place.

‘Lydia was right,’ Elsie said, ‘We should have sent word ahead.’

‘She will know we are _en route_ ,’ Will said walking back again and past her, tapping the wall as he wandered off to the right. ‘Every Priestess scries, my dear, you saw the crystal about Lyd’s neck the other morning?’

‘Yes?’

‘Well that is how they sense and divine. They do it daily as part of their rituals and whoever is in charge here will be practicing the same divination. A crystal, a pool, a mirror, she will have seen us coming.’ Tap, tap, tap, tap.

‘She could have put out a welcome sign then,’ Elsie grumbled.

‘What good would that do?’ Will called, ‘Alert out enemies to our presence, no, no, she cannot deck the crypt in lanterns for our arrival.’ Tap, tap, tap, tap.

‘I’m not suggesting she should but is it too much to ask for a door?’

‘It is a bit dark out here I concede,’ tap, tap, tap.

Thud.

‘Ah-ha!’ Charity exclaimed, turning to her with an animated look. ‘Hear that, I believe we have found our…. Ah!’

And he vanished with a yell.

‘Will!’ Elsie ran to the dark mouth of the Hall, the circular door swung open wide as Charity had leaned upon it in triumph. ‘Will, are you all right?’

He was flat out on the ground, the cane still in his grasp and his face pressed into cobblestone.

‘Ugh,’ he said. Elsie knelt by him.

‘You were saying?’ she teased. ‘Well I suppose she left it open for us, hmm? That’s a start.’ Will was scrabbling to sit up, dusting down his shiny green jerkin and trying to repair his dignity. Elsie straightened and lent him a hand before turning about her in the dark entryway.

It was utterly silent. She frowned and took a few steps into the dark. ‘Will, why are there no candles, or lamps in here? To be dark outside is one thing, but shouldn’t this be lit?’ The cold crept up her arms again damp and cloying. ‘Hello?’ she called. ‘Hello, is anyone here? Are you sure this is the right place? Perhaps some of these Halls have fallen into disuse? Lydia was telling me..’

‘Elsie,’ Will’s voice was low behind her, she turned to find him at the door his hand upon its hinges. ‘There’s something not right here.’ He guddled in his pockets, found a match and struck it, the hiss and flare lighting the shadows of his face, and the gashes in the wood before him.

‘What in heaven…’ Elsie said coming closer. The heavy door had been damaged from the outside, forced against its ornate lock as though by a thief, but it was not the prospect of criminal damage to the crypt which chilled her upon her examination of the panelling. The deep and parallel tears gouged from the oak, as though claws had ripped through the veneer were quite alarming enough. Charity glanced back into the crypt.

‘I fear someone or something got here before us,’ he said quietly and put an arm around her front to guide her. Elsie stepped back a pace towards the caravan. From within the Crypt came a single low whisper. It might have been the wind if the night had not been so still, but Elsie’s ears were increasingly attuned to the supernatural and no wind could make that sound. Will urged her back again.

‘I don’t fancy finding out who that is,’ he said, ‘Not right at this moment, I suggest we make a civilised retreat.’

She turned on her heel about to retrace her steps to the horses when she saw them. As distinctive as the creatures as they had encountered at Sherburn, masked faces made of bone, their dark forms hovering above the earth, climbing steadily towards them, some quarter of a mile downwind.

‘Will!’

On the threshold of the Dead Hall they stood back to back, one peering out into the night while the other calculated the odds of the crypt’s interior.

‘Damn it!’ Charity said, twisting to see the things approach from outside.

‘They’ve been gone these last few nights. I thought they could not survive in this realm?’ Elsie said.

‘They can’t not for long, but that doesn’t stop Adato making more of them,’ Will said. ‘Fresh ghouls… bloody marvellous. Where’s Lydia when we need her? Could really do with her big ball of whatever it was she chucked their way…’

The whisper from the crypt came again and as though answering it Elsie saw a whipline of green magic fly from their masked pursuers. It stopped just short of the caravan but they continued their advancement.

‘Those things nearly killed you,’ Elsie said gripping Will’s arm behind her. She could hear his breathing picking up, feel the twist of his body as he scouted the area for ideas.

‘We have to get inside,’ he announced.

‘What?! We don’t know what’s in there!’

‘No, but we do know what’s out here,’ Will said quickly and bundled her within the crypt.

‘Have you lost your mind?!’ she said, voice high. It bounced off the stone walls behind her. Will was heaving the heavy door into place. It was hanging at an odd angle from its damaged hinges and was taking him all his strength to hold. Elsie jumped to aid him even as she argued.‘Weighing the odds,’ he panted, ‘The ones outside take their power from darkness. Dusk’s just fallen. We can’t outrun them and we can’t fight them,’ he placed his back to the door and shoved with all his might until it clunked into place, ‘That makes for a long night trying evade some pretty dangerous chaps. I’ll take my chances with what’s in here.’

The crypt shook suddenly with a shuddering moan and then she recognised the howls of her pursuers outside, the scratching on the rooftop. The door rattled, a luminous green appearing at its edges, creeping like ivy around the doorframe, reaching like fingers for Will as he braced himself against it.

‘Elsie…. The ward!’ he cried.

‘What?’

‘The ward Lydia taught you, use it now, bind the door against them.’

‘Lock us in here?’ Elsie shouted above the whispering moan within the crypt. She felt it move like a frozen breeze about her ankles, lick past her face. The door shuddered again, and the first tentacle of magic wrapped itself about Will’s wrist. A ward. A ward. Her mind went blank. What were the words to the spell, she could not focus, the magic would not come.

‘Jesus!’ Will tugged against his bindings, his face a picture of pain as they seared into his skin, ‘Get it off me…. Elsie!’

She remembered the last time they had bound him so and felt a surge of fear and anger come from somewhere primitive inside her. Without thinking, without intention she let forth a blast of the power Lydia had tried to teach her to harness and the magical rope flew free recoiling like a bitten animal with a snake like hiss. The chamber about her groaned deeper, the darkness pitch but for the glow from the door and the remnants of her spell raining like dust from Will’s arm. She set her jaw. She could do this. She could remember the words.

Elsie raised her arms, trying to find the right incantation to fly from her lips, but the magic flew first, punched from her palms and straight through Will’s body. He was thrown forward, twisted and staggered past her, colliding with a wall, sliding down its face with a shocked expression, while the deep red ward sealed the entrance. Something outside screamed, the green tendrils vanished. Elsie stood before the door, eyes wide and skeins of crimson magic still rising from her fingertips.

‘Good Lord,’ Will said. ‘I didn’t know you could do _that._ You didn’t even say the magic words.’

Elsie looked down at her hands, flexed them curiously. ‘No,’ she said, feeling he power trickle back towards her heart, ‘I didn’t have to. Will are you all right?’

‘Absolutely, just a shock, didn’t hurt.’ Will stood clumsily, found another match and from that a torch upon the wall. He lit it and keeping close to Elsie lifted it high to see the layout of the crypt.

It was much as Lydia’s had been. A circular building with an outer ring and inner sanctum, the door to which was also broken. But no light came from beyond, no glowing altar, no welcoming fireside. As their eyes adjusted to the light Elsie felt again a rush of cold, like a dying breath, touch her face and with it the low whisper, the moan she had heard before.

‘Do you think it’s more of them?’ she asked, ‘Those things outside?’

‘I doubt very much they could exist deep within these walls,’ Will said, ‘Not with any strength. This is still consecrated ground, the presence of the priestess alone would…’ he stopped turned to her. ‘Where’s the priestess? Hall of the Dead has to have a priestess, otherwise…’

‘Otherwise what?’

‘Never mind, just pray there’s one here.’

Keeping Elsie close he stepped forward past the broken door to the sanctum. ‘Hello?’ he called.

‘Will, I don’t like this,’ Elsie said. ‘Can you feel it? There’s something terribly wrong.’

Will said nothing but edged forward again, torch held high. The breeze rushed past them and high laughter rang in the air clear enough to make them jump. Will turned this way and that trying to follow the sound and in the darkness they were disorientated quickly. The voice about them moved, its laughter increasingly shrill, invisible fingers plucking at their clothes. Elsie held tight to Will as they neared what must be by now the centre of the Hall and suddenly a gust of wind blew hard upon their torch threatening to extinguish it. Elsie raised her hand without thinking as the flame guttered and shielded it with her magic. It rose higher and hotter than before and at last the symbol of the Red Sun which hung above the altar came into view.

It was rent in two.

From the ancient tapestry the threads hung ragged from its defaced centre, a nest of worms within a corpse. The altar below was destroyed, its volumes scattered, pages torn and littered on the old stone floor. Empty candle holders and broken candles. A fruit bowl tipped and spilling its contents, grown furred and decayed. The air smelt of soured wine and sweet meat hung too long.

‘Dear God,’ she heard Will mutter and then he slid before her blocked her view. ‘I want you to do something for me,’ he said urgently.

‘What, Will? What are you doing?’ she strained to see past his shoulder but he kept the torch low and his stance firm.

‘Take this light and make your way back to the door for me, there’s a good girl.’

‘Oh no, we don’t know what’s going on yet, you will _not_ go on ahead of me.’

‘Please, Elsie.’ His face was pinched. He put the torch into her hand, and she sensed her chance.

‘No whatever it is, we face it together,’ she said and pushed past him. The whispering voice raised in victory about her, the laughter momentarily high, unhinged, and then retreating into a low chuckle. As Elsie had moved past Charity she had stepped to the side, and now could see a portion of the floor behind the altar. Could see the pale arm extended upon the bloodied tile, motionless and cold, a bundle of tangled auburn hair, a glimpse of dead eyes and the line of a woman’s jaw.

Elsie covered her mouth, a wave of nausea hitting her and then Will’s hands were strong at her elbow, holding her upright. He made sure she was not about faint and then took the torch back from her, grimly closing the gap between himself and altar and ducking behind. Even the faint rustle of the Priestess’s robes, the slick stick of the noises her decaying body made were enough to make Elsie shake from within. Swiftly Charity remerged, a crystal in his hand, gold chained. He slung it about his neck where it hung to his stomach and returned to her quickly, his boots tapping in the silence of the crypt.

The silence. The voice had grown faint and still, the breath like breeze barely detectable.

‘We need to find somewhere safe,’ Will said, turning on the spot, highlighting the cavernous ceiling, the thick stone pillars and the smattering of ancient sarcophagi in the Hall. ‘We can’t go back out but there’s every chance that whatever did that to her is still in here or worse…’

‘Worse?’ Elsie said, ‘What’s worse than whatever killed that woman?’

A slow granite slide of a sound came from behind her and she watched Will’s face react before she had time to turn about.

‘Thing about Dead Halls,’ Will said lowly with a nervous little smile, ‘Full of Dead People.’

Elsie froze, the sliding noise behind her now joined by a scraping and a whisper of old cloth. The tick tick tick of tiny bones on stone, of fingertips reaching to free their owner from their dry cold chamber. Without taking his eyes off the thing that emerged behind her Will felt in his pocket for his matches and thrust them into Elsie’s palm.

‘Find a corner, stay out of trouble, ‘I’ll deal with this. Go, _go_!’

He surged past her cane in one hand and torch in the other, full pelt into whatever was crawling from the sarcophagus. In the myriad of flailing shadows Elsie saw him charge at a gangling mass of shredded cloth and skin, spinning on the spot before striking it hard in the midsection. The thing barely staggered and continued its progress, steady and strong as Will dodged its gnarled fingers and struck it firmly under its chin with the silver tip of the cane. There was a crunch, the creature’s jaw ripping clear and it was then Elsie screamed, tripping backwards over her own feet as she felt her way past pillars and crates to the priestess’ living quarters. The light was bad and her hands trembled too much to light a lamp but she could still see Will fighting the creature, a restless cadaver, the Wandering Dead whom Lydia tended in Sherburn. Their own priestess gone the dead of this Hall were rising. To Elsie’s horror the slithering scratching noise began again as coffin after coffin opened slowly around Charity, pale dead arms reaching for him with ponderous intention.

‘Will! Behind you!’

He spun again got an elbow into the crook of something’s neck but it seized him roughly fighting to choke him in its embrace. Will pushed backwards, crushing its thin legs against the edge of the sarcophagus and then, taking advantage of the spasm running through its ancient body, ducked out of its grip, rolled fast across the floor before springing up again to face the next. The torch he held was splintered, raining fire onto the stone. Embers landed and darkened but others flew upon the supernatural breeze. As he drew the flames in an arc across one undead’s body they caught its costume, the dry and old material catching easily, its fire spreading to the papery skin. Elsie watched in horror as the flames grew up the inside of an empty ribcage and up behind its hollow eyes, but Will had no time for such spectacle and was already dealing with a third and fourth creature.

Above the scratching on the roof told her the skull faced pursuers were still beyond the walls but the pair could not remain safely within. Will was outnumbered and unarmed, his weaponry still with the caravan, this reception never expected. She saw him toss the dying torch into the path of one undead and draw the sword out from his cane, but what use would it be against these things that did not bleed, that did not stagger under the heaviest of blows, he could only fend them off, their lives already taken and their animation from another unnatural source.

Elsie tore her eyes away from his battle and spurred on by the sound of his exertion began to rake about the sparse living quarters of the dead priestess. Lydia had keep many things about her Hall, spell tomes and ingredients, a stash of weapons, there had to be something similar here that would be of use. In her panic Elsie threw clutter from shelves, cast stacks of linen into corners, crushed supplies beneath her heels. Nothing, nothing, nothing. This priestess had lived so simply according to her order that she had left Elsie with no salvation. Stumbling against the dead woman’s stores, Elsie knocked a barrel of ceremonial oils to the floor and it rolled lazily across the floor as she tore the sheets back from the bed, searched the depths of the mattress and in her panic upended the fragile wooden bed.

There was a trapdoor beneath.

Will was being driven backwards, directly to the nook in which she found herself. He was bleeding from his brow, the rich jerkin he had worse so proudly as his disguise clawed open and torn, the marks of the dead drawing blood from his chest and torso. She saw him swipe his face with one ripped sleeve, the blood smearing, staining his hair, his face damp from sweat. With one arm he braced the outer shell of the cane against the grappling arms of one creature while with the other he lunged at its cloth wrapped middle. The blade tore through but the thing kept coming, its skin hanging in rags but its strength undeterred.

‘Will! Here! There is a door!’

‘Thank God! Because we really… need… to get out of here!’ he punished a corpse with each word.

Charity tumbled under an outstretched arm which held a mace, quickly climbed a nearby crate and then another until he was higher than his enemies. The things took just a beat to realise the change in dynamic but it was long enough for him to skip from box to box about the pillars of the crypts, dipping down onto still closed sarcophagi and leaping froth even as the lids began to shift. He landed suddenly by Elsie and with his back to her cast a look at the trapdoor she had found. The creatures poured forth into their corner of the crypt as he did so.

‘Can you lift it?’ he said, ‘I don’t know how long I can keep these fellows back!’

Elsie tugged at the old iron handle but nothing moved. Behind her there was a wail as one of the undead came charging forth from the centre of the room its rags on fire. It crashed into the midst of the other slower bodies screaming feverishly, igniting all about it from the wasted shrouds to the bedlinens of the dead priestess.

‘Elsie!’ Will’s voice was rough with fear and exertion. ‘Soon as you like!’

She tugged again and the door finally came loose just as the burning bodies piled forth surrounding Will. He dived to the floor and in the seconds that followed the both of them had slipped like rats into the space beneath the Dead Hall. Will surged up almost as quickly as he landed, grabbing at the trapdoor, heaving on it with all his might. A dead arm shot about its edge, grasping for contact and with a shout Will severed the limb, the tight edge of the door firmly sealing as it cut the bones from the body. There was thudding from above, then hammering with purpose. Will was hanging onto the handle for dear life. Elsie saw the edge of the trapdoor lift then shut again, the creatures above raging to follow.

‘Stand back!’ she ordered.

‘Can’t, let go… they…’

‘Move, Will!’

The trapdoor heaved above him and he lost his grip, fell back into the darkness as a square of fire erupted in their vision, then was immediately blocked by distorted faces of the dead, pushing at one another to gain access to the crawl space. Elsie raised her hands again and prayed that whatever powers had come to her before might now repeat their task, but in that beat she recognised the barrel she had knocked to the floor in her search as it rolled across the line of her vision, on the chamber floor above. It made contact with one flaming body and…

‘Get down!’ Will seized her about the waist, felling her hard to an unseen floor as the explosion hit, fire raging above, a hurricane of hell itself in the confines of the Hall. There was a chorus of cries and wails, a soul shattering curdle of sound and then it fell away.

The crackle of fire. Tiny soft explosions from further within the tome, but no more wandering dead. The seconds ticked by, punctuated only by drips of molten fire falling from the gap above. Will lay heavy on her chest catching his breath. Elsie raised one hand tiredly where she lay and set a simple ward with a word, the first spell she had recalled all day. The shimmer of magic calmly covered the entrance to what now resembled a fiery pit, sealing the flames and smoke from them both.

Charity rolled off her and to the side, coughing slightly from his efforts.

‘Wasn’t that exhilarating,’ he said between gasps, ‘Didn’t see that coming.’ He blinked up at the ceiling. The whites of his eyes very bright against the dirt and soot and dark.

Elsie looked over to him in the gloom ‘What do we do now?’ she asked.

‘Well that very much depends on where we are,’ Will answered. ‘If this is just a basement then we really are in trouble.’ He pushed himself up and looked about, feeling in his pockets. ‘Have you got those matches?’

‘Think I might have dropped them,’ she admitted.

‘Ah,’ Will said.

They sat for a moment in the darkness. It grew thicker by the moment as the intensity of the fire above seemed to wane.

‘Don’t happen to know a guidance spell do you?’ Will asked. ‘Lydia teach you a… no?’

‘No, mainly wards.’

‘Similar though? Same school of Restoration and Healing?’ he said hopefully.

‘It’s Alteration actually.’

‘Right, sorry, of course, I was never very good at the actual magic, more the artefacts.’

‘Oh the crystal!’ Elsie remembered, ‘The one you took from the priestess, maybe it could be useful?’

‘It’s for scrying,’ Will corrected.

‘So are dowsing sticks, you can chart a path with those.’

‘One can find a stream with those Elsie not one’s way out of a crypt,’ he replied somewhat pompously by referring to his vast knowledge of ancient thingummybobs. ‘The crystal is for visions and divination. It senses the presence of enemies and can make predictions that sort of thing… no what we need is a….’ he trailed off suddenly.

‘What?’ she asked.

‘Elsie?’ his whispered voice sounded somewhere between awestruck and downright frightened, his features cast in shadow by the strange moonlight glow which was slowly filling the dark chamber.

‘What?’ she said. ‘Where’s that light coming from? Will?’

‘I have no idea,’ he said, ‘but it seems to like you, did you just… _conjure_ that?’ he asked, his expression at once morphing into a delighted smile. ‘That’s _very_ good! Gave me a bit of a shock but really, that’s terribly clever. Look over there it’s found an opening.’

‘What are you…?’

‘Guidance spell!’ Will said, ‘Lyds must have taught you one after all, but of course she taught you so much perhaps you’d forgotten. I must say I’m impressed you can do all this magical business without so much as an abracadabra, just… poof!’ he made a popping gesture with one hand, ‘Spell, voila! Very, _very_ good…’ and he winked at her. ‘Should have guessed that of all the Protected in the Order over the years Mrs William Charity would be the most talented. Splendid spell Elsie, just splendid!’

Not following Elsie looked behind her to where the clear white light was strongest. It hovered by the dark entry to a passage then floated quickly back between them, hovering at shoulder height for a moment before gently bobbing back to the opening.

Her heart leapt when she saw it, and she knew at once what it was; as impossible as it sounded, she was certain of its origin. ‘I don’t think it’s a spell, exactly, Will,’ she started carefully, ‘You see…’

‘Let’s follow it, get ourselves out of here,’ Charity said cutting off her words. He stood and gave her his hand, ‘I mean if it was good enough for the three wise men, eh?’ he turned to the light which hovered now by his face and then his enthusiasm faltered, confusion briefly taking its place.

The light came closer and seemed to reach for him tenderly, the fine beams of its refraction mapping the contours of his face. Elsie saw its reflection grow bright in his eyes, saw a beat of recognition and wonder cross Will’s features then vanish. He blinked to clear his mind and smiled again. The light moved back to the passage.

‘Righto, I think it knows its way. Ready, Elsie?’ Will asked. She nodded and he turned back, enraptured. 'Lead on, little star,' he said.


	27. Chapter 27

Their little star bobbed ahead occasionally pausing in overhangs and crevices, at the bends in the passage which led deeper underground. What had started out in dry darkness was gradually transforming, the walls turning from dusty grey to a shining black, running with clear water which pooled in gutters cut in granite by time alone. The tiny streams flowed downhill and joined with others, made their footsteps slippery and the walls bright with the silver light of their guide.

Elsie followed Will’s lead, grateful for the strength of his body before her as she slid in her dainty shoes. She had dressed in nothing more substantial than a theatre goers perception of a gypsy traveller, all show and no stamina, and she was paying the price for it now, goodness knew how many yards underground, with the chill biting her and her pretty tiered skirts growing heavy with water. Somewhere far above a fire raged, destroying the Dead Hall and all within it, and beyond that something powerful and deadly waited to claim them both. Down was the only direction open to them and it did not appear welcoming.

Will followed the star in something of a trance, unquestioning where his usual self would be inquisitive and intrigued. Elsie wondered if something within him knew, as she did, about its origins without her even needing to say. Perhaps it was subconscious, the recognition of a part of himself within the magic, for she knew the twinkling light came not solely from herself but from him, and yet as a being it was neither, a thing unto itself.

As though hearing her thoughts it paused again, a soft white glow around a many pointed star of brilliance, and waited for her to catch up. Will helped her up a rough step and ahead the passage narrowed into absolute darkness and the sound of running streams.

‘What if it just gets tighter and tighter?’ Elsie asked, ‘So that we cannot get through, what then? We can’t go back?’ She was tiring, so much quicker than she had expected even with all the excitement and danger. Her legs felt dangerously heavy, there was pain within her hips. She stood trying to massage one through the material of her costume, felt a dull ache wander down the back of her leg like too many knotted ropes. Her irritation touched her voice, and her voice touched the walls about her with an echo.

‘We’ll deal with that should it happen…’ Will started with his usual optimism.

‘We could go all this way for nothing, in the dark and cold,’ Elsie pinched her brow. The star drifted closer to her.

‘We can never be sure what lies ahead,’ Will said in an attempt to be soothing, ‘But I don’t think this little fellow would lead us astray, hmm?’ He nodded at the patiently waiting light.

‘It’s a she,’ Elsie said rubbing her neck. A wisp of magic flickered outwards from the star and some of the ache lifted.

‘Ah of course,’ Will said, ‘Spells and magic things, all usually very female in origin, I do apologise miss, how could anything so beautiful be anything other than feminine in its derivation,’ he bowed at the star and it seemed to wiggle in pleasure. ‘I think I am forgiven’ Will winked at Elsie.

‘Please, stop flirting with the… spell,’ Elsie said. ‘How much further?’

Will looked at the Star. ‘Any hints, old thing?’ It shimmered vaguely then drifted further down the passage lighting the way and a highlighting an increasingly low ceiling. ‘No? Best follow then.’

He had to duck not twenty yards on to save his head from colliding with an clutch of stalactites, dripping frozen water into his hair and under the torn seams of his green jerkin. Elsie could feel the sleeves and shoulders of her peasant blouse sticking to her miserably. Her head began to pound in unison with her sore limbs. The whole passage seemed as though it might crush her, its narrowing shape and damp thick air, the cold that reached her bones. She hung back a little from Will, quite sure that if he turned and looked upon her she would cry, when she heard his footsteps come to a slow halt and the humming sound he made when he was thinking. Elsie glanced up at the Star hovering between them, its light strong enough to show the solid wall at Will’s back.

‘What? A dead end?’ Elsie cried. ‘It lead us to a dead end?’ she looked at it helplessly.

Will held up north hands in a placating gesture. ‘Not necessarily, just… just take a moment. There must be a reason it led us here.’

‘Oh yes of course, it probably thinks we should wait out the night and the assorted ghouls on our tail in a dark cold hole in the ground miles from any help, or warmth or... or food.’ Tears, those were definitely tears now. Everything was hurting, just everything and she wanted to sit down and god she was so hungry, why was she so hungry?

‘There must be something... these streams must be headed somewhere, water always knows where it is going you just need to follow…’ Will cast his eyes about the floor of the little chamber but he was having to squint to see anything at all. ‘I say little star could you?’

Suddenly the thing flew upwards and then with terrifying speed and brilliance plunged right through the floor and vanished. The whole chamber went dark. Water dripped and ran. Elsie span on the spot trying to catch a glimpse of the star, or anything in the absolute blackness all about her.

‘Bloody hell!’ Will snapped. ‘Now that isn’t funny. You’re not playing the game old thing, if, as you have, _insis_ t upon leading us somewhere dark and mysterious then at the very least you can stick about long enough for us to work out what it is we need to….’

Elsie screamed.

She felt the floor give before she heard the sound of her terror, before that of the of rock hitting water far beneath, and then she was falling, headfirst, feet first, she couldn’t tell but in the brief seconds between the collapse and her striking the unseen pool beneath her she felt the size of the cavern about her, felt it in the quality of the air, in the length of her fall. The ice cold of a lake rushing to meet her, filling her nose, blocking her ears to all but her heartbeat and muffled destruction; her clothes tangled and heavy, the darkness choking now, in her lungs, behind her eyes. She twisted and turned, the surface lost in shadow, no notion of how or where to swim, the panic rising with the rapid flutter of her pulse with the burn in her chest. Flares of red, desperate blood in her closing vision, rock splashing down about her; something struck her outstretched arm and she screamed, the last bubbles leaving her mouth. Nothing left.

Elsie closed her eyes and the pain grew less, more distant. The cold so dense it became soothing and now that her lungs were filled with it, she had no more want for air. So this was how things ended, so silently, so dark. She was floating, not at the surface, not at the depths, just suspended, quietly waiting. For the next phase. For rebirth. Waiting. Waiting.

Dark eyes through skeins of clouds.

_…Wait for me…_

Something touched her injured arm, something warm and Elsie’s eyes flickered open. A face crossed her vision, a voice she vaguely knew.

 _I told you, to wait, for me,_ it said, and smiled.

The sound of gentle laughter somewhere very far away, but yet somehow within. It bubbled like the streams that fed the lake. Wait for me, no rushing on ahead. An arm about her waist, the air hitting her face as hard as the rock against her back as she slumped to the ground. Will leaning over her, frantic, his cold hands cradling her face.

‘Breathe, Elsie, _breathe!_ ’

He rolled her and she took a gasping breath, choking up the contents of her lungs, fighting for the next. The pain tore at her throat, she thought she had been dying but that tranquil pool had spared the pain of this, this battle in the moment between life and loss that played out in her body. Will, apparently no stranger to a half drowned victim was encouraging the liquid from her lungs, ordering her to inhale, to cough away the excess, he slapped her hard between the shoulders, the sting of his palm upon her spine stronger which each rising note of panic in his voice.

Finally her coughing subsided, the burn turned to heat in her chest. Will was sniffing and gasping beside her, his face wan, the Red Moon nested in muscles of his heaving chest; it peaked out between ripped garments, between hair soaked in silver droplets and rivulets of fatal water. The amulet was dry.

Elsie looked beyond his soaked and kneeling figure, through the haze of her final choking tears, at the cavern that had claimed them underground, its high roof and deep and perfect lake of black settling again from their intrusion. The shapes of stalactites and stalagmites upon its shores like the broken limbs of trees, rock pools scattered about the banks, the ribbons of water which fell from the roof where they had made their entrance, others wending their way through pillars, a gathering place of nature’s making somewhere far away from man, and high above it all, shining just as brightly as before, illuminating Elsie and Will, was her Star. A little Moon unto itself in a tiny hidden world. Thank God, thank God, she placed one hand on her belly and felt her panic abate a little more. It was unhurt, intact, within her still. _Shining_ still.

Elsie pushed herself from Will who collapsed soggily onto a pile of sand. She felt a sharp pain in her arm looked down to find a gash a few inches long and a ripped and bloodied sleeve. A wave of nausea swept over her and then another of preternatural rage. A rock must have struck her wrist, but what if it had struck somewhere else? What if it had struck Will? Her own pain be damned but if he had drowned, if she had been left there all alone without him, if her child had never met its father.

‘You could have killed us!’ she screamed at the floating light.

‘She led me straight to you!’ Will protested.

‘After I fell through the blasted ceiling! The ceiling she probably weakened with her fancy disappearing act!’

‘She very quickly pointed the way, I was able to dive straight in and…’

‘Through the raining bombs of rockery!’

‘You make it sound like the ancients have been landscape gardening, my dear,’

‘Those rocks could have hit you!’

‘Oh I would have been all right,’ Will said proudly, ‘I’ve been described as very thick headed in the past.’

‘I could have _drowned_! I thought I _had_ drowned! And look at my arm!’

‘You’re quite all right, just had a bit of a fright,’ Will said with an infuriatingly patronising tone.

‘We have spoken about this. Just because you are used to diving of cliffs and falling out of windows does not mean that I have to get used to near death experiences, ghouls, undead, underground bloody caverns filled with icy water….’

Will was flat on his back laughing. ‘I hate to break this to you Elsie, but you’re _married_ to me now, this sort of thing is par for the course, what?’

‘I should never have married you,’ she grumbled and folded her arms against her soaking chest.

Will looked at her in alarm. ‘Now come on, I know this has been a bit unfortunate but…’

‘I don’t mean it just… let me have my moment, will you?’ she said quietly and glared out across the lake. She was starting to shiver.

‘If you don’t mean it then why do you need to say it at all?’ he asked baffled.

‘Because I am a woman, you utter buffoon, and it is my right,’ Elsie snapped.

Will sat silently on the shore as he had been told, a sooty, soggy, smeared mess in a torn gypsy costume and what looked like half a dozen ancient artifacts dangling from his neck.

‘You look ridiculous,’ Elsie said.

‘Be grateful I didn’t bring the wig,’ he commented.

‘Shut up.’

‘Any more insults you want to hurl my way before I do that?’

‘I’ll think of some.’

‘Come here, woman, that’s enough sulking, you’re freezing and we need to work out what to do now.’

‘Oh yes, what now Captain Charity? Now that our friendly beacon has led us to an undiscovered cavern miles underground with no obvious exit.’

‘Well we don’t know that,’ Will said, standing and brushing damp sand from his damaged trousers. You didn’t think that passage led anywhere and here we…’ he stopped catching her look, ‘All right I suppose technically it didn’t _lead_ anywhere at all so really this is a stroke of luck, far better than a dead end!’

‘I am warning you, Will.’

Charity strode about the little landing by the lake. ‘There’s lots to explore,’ he said trying to be cheerful and then reaching the edge of the narrow embankment. Elsie continued her glaring. The star floated off somewhere behind them with a nonchalant little bob. Will’s face made an ‘ah!’ expression of hope and he made to move after it.

‘Do not follow that thing,’ Elsie said suddenly incredibly irritated at the pretty light.

Will looked behind him, ‘But what if…’

‘I just need a minute!’ Elsie snapped as the Star drifted further and the light grew dimmed. ‘I am cold and I am hungry and my arm hurts and just for a moment I am going to damn well be the little princess I was raised to be upon my father’s estate and I am going whine about it. And then when I have done that we will gather our thoughts and our resources because what choice have we in all actuality, but for now you will stand there William Charity as my husband and you will sympathise and you will make reassuring noises and most importantly you will do as you are told for five minutes until I regain myself.’

Will gave her a sideways look of matrimonial inspired terror but very wisely fell to quietly regarding the lake with his hands clasped before him like a penitent school boy. He glanced only once over his shoulder, but the Star was waiting at some distance away now and it was not entirely clear what it was doing. Still Elsie felt sure it would not abandon them, even if it did appear to have a saucy sense of humour and a love for the dramatic. Took after its father apparently.

The thought made her lip twitch and then her emotions reeled from angry to upset again in a moment. Lydia had warned her all about the insanity of pregnancy, now she was experiencing it first hand. She hated it, she loved it, she wanted to chide it and smother it with affection all at once.

‘I don’t know why you’re so annoyed at me,’ Will with a pout said after less than one of his allotted five minutes, ‘You conjured her.’

‘I did not conjure her.’

‘Well not intentionally maybe, but I don’t see how else a guidance spell could just appear and you _are_ a witch.’

‘She’s not a spell,’ Elsie said, turning to him. ‘That’s what I wanted to speak to you about, before all this,’ she waved her hands around to indicate the generalised chaos of the last hours. ‘Something has happened Will and I believe she is the result…’ Elsie saw his expression turn to one of curiosity and anticipation and then the light behind him grew very, very bright indeed.

‘Well?’ he prompted, ‘Do tell me it’s a good something, I mean it feels like a good something, she did get us out of quite a jam! Arguably she might have got us into another one now but…’

‘Will….’ Elsie said breathlessly.

‘Good lord,’ he spun to face the back of the cavern, to look upon the space which until moments before had been occupied by darkness and a few poor yards of sand. Now the clearing was set back deep into the rock, carved steps to one side leading to a mezzanine surrounded by ancient ropes and vines, below it a fire pit and a rustic wooden clothes horse upon which simple costumes were warming, pots and pans simmering beneath. But it was not these trappings of domesticity in such a cold and hostile landscape which struck Elsie as most odd.

At either side of the clearing there was a scrying pool, except that it did not lay flat as most pools do, but appeared liked a mirror, framed in gold and vertical but quite clearly filled with water. The two reflected in upon themselves to infinity and every now and then it was as though a drop of water fell into their midst and their images rippled.

Elsie took a few steps forward as Will wandered closer to the fire, his eyes wide.

‘I’ve never… none of this was _here_ before… how…?’ he was saying. ‘It must be an illusion, something with mirrors, those things,’ he pointed at the scrying pools accusingly, ‘Got to be! I’ve used a few tricks in my time but… do you think this was hiding here all this time?’

Bobbing slowly towards her, the Star, its glow a little dimmer than before.

‘I don’t believe so,’ Elsie said.

‘It just magically appeared out of rock?’ Will said, ‘Come now Elsie, that’s a little naïve.’

‘It feels magical,’ she said defensively, ‘And I am as you note, a witch.’ She beckoned the star closer towards her but it moved sluggishly.

‘There has to be an explanation. I’m as open minded as the next man when it comes to the Mysteries but there are limits. Creating something from nothing at all, altering the entire physicality of a space, summoning forth fire, water,’ he stooped over the cooking pot, ‘Some sort of vegetable soup, there isn’t a spell that does this sort of thing Elsie, there isn’t a Being that has that kind of power to just throw about the place on a whim so that we might have a bit of a rest and some grub.’

The Star came to rest on Elsie’s outstretched hand and she suddenly understood. Its light dimmed further.

 _Wait for me…_ it asked of her.

‘I think you’re wrong,’ she said to Will.

Will picked up a bottle and eyed it carefully before his eyes lit on something else. She watched him sniff the neat pouch of tobacco.

‘Cinnamon and vanilla,’ Elsie said.

‘How did you know?’

‘It’s your favourite. It’s rich and warm and soothing and it makes me think of our first night together. She associates it with you too, I suspect, your collar always smells of it, it gets in the wool.’

‘I’m not sure that’s reassuring,’ Will said, ‘Obviously its lovely that you know these tiny details about me, but as you claim to have nothing to do with this little feat of illusion I can only presume one of my many enemies has rather a lot of information and they are using it against us. It’s a trick, a ploy to throw us off our guard, it’s probably all poisoned or boobytrapped,’ he looked about him suspiciously.

‘You think an enemy did all this?’ Elsie said and cradled the Star to her body with her injured arm. ‘Really? Look, Will,’ she whispered as she felt a little coil of light spin forth like silk and seal the gash along her wrist. Will’s eyes grew wider and then the Star flickered softly, shrinking in upon itself.

‘Shh,’ Elsie said instinctively, her fingertips gentle in the light.

‘What’s happening?’ Will asked, ‘Is it all right? Where’s it going? Why is it fading like that?’

‘She’s tired,’ Elsie said as it vanished within her body.

‘Tired?! We are all bloody tired Elsie, she can’t just pack up and have a little nap in…’ he stopped looking at the place where the Star had disappeared. Elsie held her palms over her belly protectively. Charity lifted one hand and pointed, somewhere between endearingly astonished and completely uncomprehending ‘She… it… she went in _there_?’

Elsie nodded, feeling the magic settle into a slow thrum within her, an exhausted sleep.

Will half turned on his heel, his hands on his hips, sodden freezing clothes clinging to him as he desperately tried to get his half-thawed and fatigued mind to process what she was telling him.

‘But that means… that would mean… She’s…’

‘A baby,’ Elsie said, ‘She’s our baby.’

He stopped dead in his pacing, profile sharp against the cosy fire behind him, his eyes unfocused on the black lake at his feet. There was something broken in his posture she had never seen before, a vein of something hidden she had never mined deep enough to discover. The darkness lapped gently at the shore. On and on. Cold and eternal.

‘A baby,’ he said at last.


	28. Chapter 28

For long and empty moments Will Charity stood still upon the shore and it was too dark to read his expression. The fire pit crackled behind them both and Elsie heard the hiss and pop of a cooking meal within a pot. Despite her anxiety her stomach growled, a nagging pain under her ribs, and her skin felt chilled with the kind of ice that would thaw only with a hot meal and a warm blanket, but she waited nonetheless, Will’s pensive silhouette weighed down before her by an unseen weight.

Suddenly he straightened, glanced back at the clearing, sweeping a handful of curly wet hair from his brow with each first. He dragged his palms down his face and in the firelight, Elsie caught the sadness in his eyes, the absolute exhaustion and worry in the lines about his face. She had not known quite what to expect from him at the time of her revelation. Shock or denial as had been her own first instincts, happiness or joy, but not this sorrow; in his movements, in his tone, not this fatigue and resignation, this careworn emptiness.

‘Right, well first things first we need to get you dry,’ Charity said quickly as he moved towards the fire, ‘Back in the day one always carried a dry kit and a wet kit, always have a change of uniform, always be prepared.’ He stopped by the old clothes horse, ‘Of course our kit’s back in the caravan which is probably… I mean it’s probably… ah.’

He stopped, his levity faltering. The caravan and all within was likely destroyed by those that hunted them, and she knew he was not thinking of possessions but of the horses when she caught the tiny quiver in his jaw, the way his gaze flicked defensively away from her, from his task, from anything which would require them to focus.

‘Who needs a caravan,’ he said clearing his throat, ‘Silly brightly painted thing, far too obvious eh? No. We have plenty here, to be going on with. Look at that, splendid,’ he lifted a warm bundle of clothes and patted it absently. It could have been the sting of the lake water, but his eyes looked red about their rims.

‘Will?’ Elsie said softly trying to get closer. He had the air of a tiny cornered creature fit to dash, the tremble of cold like the fear of a rabbit.

Charity turned and looked at her with a strange smile on his lips. His skin was altogether too pale. ‘Now’s not the time to be shy, Elsie, come, get yourself dry and changed, you get on with that and I’ll… I’ll…’ he looked about, ‘Ah, I shall prepare a little tonic, you’re not the only one with a few brewing skills, something to warm you up after all that splashing about,’ his laugh was strained and he disappeared from her side at the moment she reached him, busying himself with uncorking a bottle with a tiny knife he drew out from his belt buckle.

‘Didn’t know I had this, hmm?’ he said, ‘Not much use against those chaps upstairs but effective against the odd were beast, solid silver,’ he hefted it in his hand where it gleamed in the firelight, ‘Bloody hard to kill, Lycans, tough little buggers, fight dirty too, all teeth and claws and if they catch you with those, well you’re done for at worst, howling at the moon once a month at best. I’ve had a run in with one or two and it was a close call I can tell you. Ever since then I keep this about me if the moon is high, as it has been this week, just in case a few angry puppies want to add to our current… ah…troubles…’ he finished softly.

‘Will.’

He swallowed, his features falling but quite unable to meet her eye. ‘Just… get yourself changed, there’s a good girl, give old Charity a moment.’

Elsie stared at him in disbelief. ‘Will, have you even heard what I have said?’

‘Yes, yes of course I have.’

‘Have you nothing to say? Nothing at all?’

‘Nothing that can’t wait until you are warm and dry and have some food inside you,’ he answered sharply. He was trying to sound kind and patient, but his tone came out brittle and his avoidance and vacant stare was more than unnerving her now.

‘No, Will,’ she said, ‘it cannot wait, you will give me your response; it has waited long enough.’

‘Has it?!’ he snapped, ‘Has it indeed? How long exactly, how long have you known and kept your secret?’

‘I… ‘tis but a few days. I meant…’

He turned away sharply with a shake of his head.

‘Will! A few days is nothing, I merely needed some time!’

‘Ha! Your time. Did we not just discuss such a premise? A woman’s right to take her moment, to whine and cry until her sensibilities grow stable once more, hmm? Well now I will take my time if you so please! I will take _my_ moment to register what it is that you have told me, to work out what in hell’s name we must do next, for that is my role is it not as the gentleman in this relationship? To provide the answers for the impossible discourse you insist on bringing to my table!’

He panted from the strength of his words, but the flow of his outburst then seemed to duck away tormented. He looked at once agitated and so lost, but had she not felt the same, did the child not grow within _her_ body? How dare he react in such a manner when she most needed his support. Elsie felt her own breath leave her.

‘Will! You make me sound cruel! Deliberate and cruel!’ she said horrified. ‘I do none of this to be unkind, I was as surprised as you are now, as frightened…’

‘Frightened!’ he scoffed and glanced away. ‘I am a grown man; I cannot be frightened of a child not even born! I have faced a good many fears you cannot even imagine. You forget who you are dealing with young woman,’ and he jabbed a finger in her direction before once again turning away, a myriad of emotion churning on his face.

‘I am well aware these are not normal circumstances,’ Elsie said levelly with some difficulty. ‘That the timing is… difficult to say the least, but this is our child Will, our baby conceived in love…’

‘Or magic,’ he said lowly, ‘Don’t forget that. There is every possibility there is nothing natural at all about this business, that what grows within you is naught but the will of the Blasted Red Sun!’

‘Be quiet!’ Elsie cried, ‘Your words disgust me. You have seen her! Our daughter! You looked up at that light in awe, Will, you saw something within you knew and recognised, do not try to tell me now you think it all a trick, when you feel it just as I do, true and real.’

‘We have barely lain together but a month! Never in all the world has a woman got with child so quickly!’

Elsie grabbed the Red Sun at her throat, ‘Fertility, Will! Protection, Healing, Long Life and _Fertility_!’

‘Chicanery more like! The wiles of an ancient, manipulative Order who have cursed us all our lives! I never even… not once for the best part of weeks… I held back, held off until…! Jesus Christ, Elsie.’

‘So, this is some immaculate conception, some by product of a spell!?’

‘Well who in hell itself knows! Because I am at a loss! I cannot keep up. Everything I thought I learned from the Arcana, everything I thought I understood about my role, is shattered within a month of meeting you! Perhaps the Ancient Scripts were right to warn us to stay apart, for disaster befalls us now and follows every turn. There are good reasons why we should never be together, I should never have looked upon your face!’

Elsie felt her cheeks redden as though slapped and stinging.

‘You don’t mean that,’ she said. Will looked immediately regretful.

‘I’m sorry, you’re right….’ he started.

‘All of this is unfair! You are as much a part of our situation as I and always have been. You feel the same pull of the magics, the same affection for our child. The difference lies only in your pride. You feel as I do but are too cowardly to admit it.’

Will bared his teeth.

‘Unfair!? _Unfair?_ You name me as a coward, and you call it all unfair? You impudent ungrateful girl! You who tell me now I am to be a father, here amidst this utter ghoulish chaos. The legend as we knew it torn asunder, the very Dead Halls themselves no longer places of safety, Adato’s intentions unclear but _clearly_ deadly. With each dream and nightmare my past rushes upon me like the raging sea, fit to have me drown in long dead faces, and now you demand from me what precisely?’ He stalked towards her. ‘Tell me? What?’

‘Will,’ she sobbed.

‘Joyful congratulations?’ he suggested. ‘Should I host a happy family gathering in celebration, buy you pretty distractions for your confinement, place an announcement in a newspaper?’

‘Will, no, please…’

‘You have no notion of unfair, you are, just as your father, born of spoiled entitled gentry to whom each child is a god sent blessing! Well I will tell you something, the world is a harsh and dangerous place and babies are but blessings if they survive, they and their mothers. They are blessings if they live past their infancy, if they see their second winter, if their parents can afford to feed their little mouths and they are not struck down by cholera or worse and that is without the presence of magic, of spells and undead, of haunted masks and burning curses. What you tell me does not smack of joy but of loss, the loss of both you and the child should hell rain down upon us!’

He paced frantically before her, catastrophe in his every imagining, sweat beading his lip and eyes wild.

‘You are not even showing, there will be months ahead. Months of hiding, months of fear. And when the time comes you will have no choice but to be alone, you will be birthing this child without a midwife by your side, into a disintegrating Order, the Red Sun ripped asunder upon a burning altar, and if God forbid the pain and blood loss does not end you what is to say what becomes of that magic you hold now in your belly? What becomes of that child? You’ve seen the power it seems to wield, and power is always coveted. Every evil thing upon this earth will hunt her from the first cry that she makes.’

He turned back towards her frenzied. ‘All of this we must consider and more and yet you did not tell me? When we were safe? Guarded by a Priestess? When we had time to think or plan? You’ve known for days and yet said nothing as we travelled here? Kept your secret until you feel able to share your truth at your indulgence. You say we are both a part of this and yet I feel it not. What am I supposed to do, Elsie? How am I to protect either of you when you don’t give me a chance!’

‘Will, please, it is a shock, I know that, it was to me when Lydia drew the card and it was that shock that kept it from you…’

‘Lydia? _Lydia_ knows?’ he cried, distraught. ‘Of course! She has the seeing Eye. And I suppose Sandy is busily knitting booties back at the crypt? Do our undead guests know too? Those things pursuing us outside? Is there anyone in fact who has not been informed about this baby except myself?’

‘Will, you aren’t being reasonable!’

‘How can I be reasonable when all about me our world is crumbling?’ he all but shouted, ‘How am I supposed to keep anybody safe when I do not even know how many of you I must Protect? You have no idea what’s coming. We are racing towards the end, Elsie, _I_ am racing towards my…’ he cut the words off quickly, his voice breaking. ‘I am…’ there it was. A sob, lodged in his next word, preventing its release.

‘What? You are what? What are you talking about, we have barely begun?’

He stepped away, deliberately averted his gaze. Suddenly so still after an explosion of grief and heartache, he wrestled to regain a steadiness of breath, to slow his pounding pulse.

‘Get changed,’ he said, the words fighting to be released as emotion choked his voice. ‘Please! Just… give me a little time.’

‘Will, you cannot expect not to rise to your words when you express such anger…’ Elsie started and then realised she had misread the mood. Will was not truly angry, but he could not express his pain. He had been just the same when he had confessed about Ahmes, filled with loathing for himself, his own inadequacy and failing. Now Will looked at her desperately as he begged to have a moment and she saw terror, registered that he was trying very hard not to cry. She held out her hand and he flinched, turning and making a deliberate path to the back of the clearing with the fresh clothes still in his hands. He slumped down upon a rock and placed his head in his hands, and Elsie saw his shoulders heave.

Elsie hovered a moment longer, stunned, her heart clenching, but some instinct told her not to push. She retreated to the fire and set about unfastening what remained of her sodden dirtied skirts and blouse. There were cloths and towels to dry her skin and hair, and the fire had created a bubble of warmth contained between the upright scrying pools. She quickly stepped into a simple peasant dress made of wool and tied the basic bodice. A shawl about her shoulders she fetched wooden bowls and lifted the lid of the bubbling pot. The soup was thick and appetising, she spotted bread outside the stone wall of the firepit and cut a chunk, her hunger too great to ignore and the sleeping star within insisting on her needs. Elsie tore off a mouthful and sat where she could see Will, feeding herself automatically as she watched, desperate to intervene but anxious of his reaction.

Just yards from her but in the cold. So close but far away. The little physical distance and the chasm of their argument between them. It lent her new perspective as though she viewed a painting not the man.

He was not a bad man but he was a damaged one, whose charming mask would slip from time to time to show his scars. There was still so much she did not know of William Charity and moments like these made her flounder. The glimpses of his childhood Lydia had shared and drawn him as a warm and playful boy, devoted to his sisters. His manner with Sandy confirmed his natural abilities with children, his sense of wonder and of fun, his innate knowledge of their need for comfort and security even when he led them on an adventures. The stories he told ended happily, the peril would always recede, a hero would always come to their rescue and he would be that hero. Children could sleep soundly when Charity was around, but she knew that he could not, that he often did not sleep at all. That nightmares still plagued him, that he felt little else but guilt for times long past, that one little girl in particular haunted him and that he would believe, always, that he had failed.

Since Abyssinia Captain William Charity had been running. From whatever happened there which he could not remember, from the little that he did but could not piece together. From the memory of a trusting child he had tried so hard to rescue, who had seen him as her salvation, believed his earnest promises and then, in Will’s version at least, had been deceived. Will believed himself to be the very worst fairy-tale knight, a false champion. The rescuer that never came, the promise maker broken and Ahmes was not even his own Protected to protect.

Will ran home from Abyssinia to seek comfort and found his lover had abandoned him, that his closest friend betrayed him, that his role brought only danger to his family. He ran from them straight to the Bureau and the strange anonymity each mission gave. The fleeting encounters, the tricks, the illusions, the shallow roots of life that never bedded.

He could escape every escapologists tank of water, every padlocked chest, every set of chains about his wrists. He could materialise in a hundred disguises and fool his public, slip from their sight and re-emerge again, altered and mysterious, a thing of transitory charm. He could run and run but while he did, he could still keep his promise to the Protected. He watched over Elsie, the only constant in his life; at a distance, in the shadows, and she had never even known his face. Wherever he ran to escape his own demons, he would be sure to check in upon her. No ties, no hurt, just duty, just the Role of the Protector, passing through on his next mission.

Something occurred to Elsie as she sat close to the fire. He need not have come when her mother called. He need not have dined upon the estate. He need not have lingered in the woods on that first day. If the Amulet commanded it and he truly wanted to break his duty could he not have found a way? Taken her to marry the old fool her father had picked for her after all and locked her in a different castle? Found some ancient spell to destroy the amulet he wore, even left her to fates of her pursuers, struck a deal, handed her to the enemy? It may not have succeeded but he never even tried.

Charity could have run from Elsie long ago had he chosen to, spurned the legend, tried for freedom, refused to do his duty. Instead he was here, insisted on it, bound himself with ribbons to her cause and to her life and soul. He was absolutely dedicated to his wife and to his child and the enormity of that was crushing him. He was frightened and he was labouring with that fear, but how else could he feel as one who had always had the option just to run before. He had ceased to care for his own life long ago but now…

Perhaps it had never been reckless Charity’s intention to come skidding to a halt. To bind himself within his life and fail in his escape; to be a good and selfless man, to care with all his heart, because surely then he would have known the price that he would pay. The chains of love are stronger than those of simple duty, and those chains do not break. They just slice deep, and the frightened boy who tries to run is cut instead to pieces.

_Don’t run._

_Stay with me._

Elsie emptied her bowl and watched the set of Will’s shoulders as they ceased to shake from emotion and began to shake from cold. Cold and exhaustion. Too heavy with waterlog to run anymore, too weighed in responsibility, his body seemed to lack the elegance it had always shown. A master of the fighting arts Charity had always seemed light upon his feet, twisting and dancing between enemies, but now he was too still. He had uncovered his face and sat looking out onto the black lake with his hands between his knees. His hair was slowly drying in ringlets and for the first time she noticed a single greying curl above his forehead. She pictured the last memory of the boy his sister had described against the face of the man she now loved. William Charity was tired. He had been running for over twenty years.

Protectors do not usually see thirty, he once told her, and he lived on borrowed time, never straying from the moment because it might just be his last. And now he had a wife. And a baby. And an enemy who knew his name and knew his face and knew his every movement, closing in upon the things he loved, the only things that mattered, and he had just realised that he could not run any further.

Journey’s end, she realised, it must feel like journey’s end. The thing he ran from all this time, the potential for more pain.

Well, she thought, some journey’s ends are painful, but some are new beginnings.

Elsie picked up a towel and made her way across the sand to her husband.


	29. Chapter 29

Will glanced at her shamefully as she squeezed down beside him on the rock, but he did not resist. Instead he closed his eyes and bowed his head. Slowly Elsie patted his face dry of tears and cold lake water; rubbing gently at the smears upon his cheeks, tending to the graze upon his forehead and the cut upon his nose. She hummed an old tune under her breath until the words rose up from her heart. It made her think of home, her garden and her herbs and all that she had left behind.

_Come all you fair and tender girls_

_That flourish in your prime_

_Beware, beware, keep your garden fair._

_Let no man steal your thyme_

Elsie dragged the cloth down over the bristle of Will’s beard, a few days long, caught the shimmer of silver in that too about his chin and jaw, the fine spun hair about his temples like moonlit spiders silk. So close to his open face and closed eyes, the vulnerable paper thin skin shadowed with fatigue. She could feel his warm breath slowing as she worked, as she curled her fingers about the single silver ringlet of his hair and set it back from his brow, let her thumbs trace the soft lobes of his ears as she dried him.

_For when your time it is past and gone_

_He’ll care no more for you,_

Will reached for her hand and clasped it.

_And every place where your time was waste_

She heard the deep timbre of his voice rise up to join hers unexpectedly. The press of his hand still firm.

_Will all spread o’er with rue,_

_Will all spread o’er with rue._

She let him take the lead in the next verse, choosing to accompany him. The shadows were dense beneath his close eyes, almost purple. The skin was bagged and lined, the lids heavy, but the lashes as long and thick as ever. Every time she looked upon him now, he seemed a little older and yet his voice was rich and deep and warm.

_The gardener’s son was standing by,_

_Three flowers he gave to me,_

_The pink the blue and the violet true_

_And the red, red rosy tree_

_And the red, red rosy tree_

They harmonised effortlessly before she finished the last verse. Will’s voice clear and pure in the strange acoustic darkness of the cavern and his tone bittersweet with loss, but he fitted with her perfectly until he stumbled on the final lines.

_But I refused the red rose bush_

_And gained the willow tree_

_That all the world may plainly see_

_How my love slighted me_

_How my love…_

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I didn’t mean it, any of it, I’m simply…’

Elsie set the towel in her lap and held his face, kissed him sweetly on the lips.

‘Shh,’ she reassured.

‘Please forgive me,’ he opened his eyes at last. ‘I am yours always, b-both of you. Why must I be so very bad at this?’

‘Quiet now,’ Elsie said and then reached to part the torn jerkin he still wore. Will hissed, a wound exposed as she pulled the sleeves away, where dead claws had gouged him. The blood had ceased to flow but the gash was angry, accompanied by a dozen other nicks and scrapes across his chest, a wealth of bruises on his ribs. It reminded her of the first night before she had healed him; of the roadmap of his scars. Perhaps they truly had not left him at all, and she had just performed a glamour of disguise. She breathed deep for a moment as Lydia had taught her, and summoned a golden glow to her palm.

‘People associated the willow with weeping,’ she said as she worked, passing a cloth over the scratches and then touching lightly with her fingers. The Red Sun shone softly at her throat. ‘But not I, for those of us who are witches it has a richer meaning.’

Will’s gaze followed her hands as she touched each painful sore.

‘A willow is a living being, a spirit like our own, it grows and changes, bends and twists. No other tree can adapt in quite the way the willow does. Its branches swerve and turn, it bows in the storm and shapes itself according to where the world would have it fit. It does not fight the process but surrenders to it and in doing so, it survives. That’s us.’

Will let out a tiny disbelieving laugh.

‘It is!’ Elsie insisted. ‘I gained the willow tree,’ she winked at him, ‘You can keep your roses and your violets and for that matter your mighty oaks and firs. The branches of my willow encircle and protect me against whatever comes our way.’

‘I don’t deserve you,’ he said.

‘Maybe not, but you are owed, Will,’ she kissed his forehead again, ‘You are _owed_.’

The shirt removed, the wounds tended, just the dampness beneath remained and the cold air away from the fire chilled him. His skin goosepimpled and muscles spasmed. Will made a soft noise of complaint, a low miserable tone of a man cold and sore and frozen. Elsie rubbed the skin dry briskly, hooked her arms about his neck and unfurled the towel over his back so that it draped like a cape about his shoulders. She tucked it tight about him.

‘Come to the fire,’ she said. Will bit his lip uncertainly, so she stood and pulled him to accompany her, guiding him to the fireside, sitting him where she had sat, in the warmth between the scrying pools, with their reflections on both sides.

Elsie fetched a fresh shirt and new trousers, and had knelt beside him to unfasten his boots, when his hand emerged from under the towel and stopped her.

‘I can do it.’

‘Your fingers are as ice, sit and thaw and eat something, I’ll get you dry.’

‘You don’t have to, you shouldn’t have to, you… I don’t deserve more kindness at this point, please, you’ve done enough and you should rest,’ he patted the bench where he was sitting and bid her join him. ‘Take another bowl of the soup for yourself while you’re at it.’ He looked miserably at the fire. Elsie handed him his bowl first.

‘I know how I must sound, I who called _you_ ungrateful,’ he said. ‘I was _vile._ Those words should never have entered my mind let alone passed my lips. For the baby, I should be delighted, I _want_ to be delighted, I can imagine nothing more beautiful. Indeed I don’t need to imagine do I, she was right here,’ Will suspended his spoon in the soup. ‘It’s just that now…’

‘I know,’ Elsie said.

‘I wish things could be different. I wish I could make it different for you. It is all I have ever wished for really, even before I knew you, that this Curse be lifted.’

‘Will, you are doing all that you can. Our cards are drawn, our Fates marked. We have little choice but to try and manage where we are now, and we will manage, I’m certain.’

‘You are certain,’ he observed, ‘I wish that I could be.’

‘I have always had more faith in you than you have in yourself, and even greater faith in us. And there are three of us now. The odds are getting better.’

Will smiled a tiny smile. ‘Since when were you the optimist amongst us?’

‘You rub off on me. Eat.’

He did in silence for a minute or more before she sensed the melancholy falling over him like a veil. ‘A baby,’ he said. ‘You know I always wanted to be a father. When I first met Catherine’s little boy, I thought he had a look about him, a certain twinkle in his eye and despite the awkward circumstances, oh how I was thrilled just at the prospect.’

Elsie looked at him, surprised. ‘You thought he was yours?’

‘Of course, I had all my dates mixed up. If he had been mine, she must have been with child for almost eighteen months, maybe more.’

Elsie raised one eyebrow.

‘Anyway, chaps aren’t terribly good with these things,’ Will said, ‘And of course we are all horribly egotistical and think everything revolves around ourselves and that any lady we touch must of course fall victim to our superior seed, so I spent a while agonising and pleading with her but I did eventually see that the whole thing wasn’t possible and felt like a ruddy fool.’

Elsie tried not to laugh at his hopeless machismo. Will turned to look at her, something of his usual light about his face now.

‘It’s true, no?’ he said. ‘The bit about our egos? We’re always slapping one another on the back and having competitions to see how far we can fire the stuff…’

Elsie almost choked on her soup.

‘Any other potential Charities out there I need to know about?’ she asked. ‘Did you fire your seed to any particularly spectacular lengths or directions?’

‘Oh no, I don’t think so,’ he said stirring the bowl and failing to laugh at her joke, ‘I’m not nearly as much of a lady’s man as I make out. I mean obviously they are all champing at the bit to get to me. At least, some version of me, whatever persona I’ve chosen to don that week, but…’ he set the soup aside with a sigh.

‘I like to keep moving,’ he said quietly. ‘Well, latterly anyway. One thing being a young buck in the army, swapping tales with your chums about girls, but eventually you come to see that’s not a very gentlemanly thing to do and… I mean I’d more or less given up. Not women completely, I’m not a monk as you and Lyds took great joy in pointing out, but, well I didn’t think I’d ever be in a position where a very lovely lady, a _special_ lady and a baby would be involved. This is all…’ the worried look was back.

‘New to you?’

‘Rather.’

‘It is all quite new to me too, but…. Willow tree… we will adapt,’ Elsie said and cut more bread. Will looked at the rapidly shrinking loaf.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so ravenous,’ he commented. He picked at a crust listlessly and set it aside again. ‘I should dry off,’ he said without much motivation. The water from his soaked breeches was still leeching into the bench and Elsie edged away from him slightly so save her own dry clothes.

‘Yes,’ she encouraged.

He toed off the boots, peeled wet stockings from his feet and squeezed out lake water. After a moment he stood, the towel still about his shoulders and unhooked the top of his trousers until Elsie could see the wet skin beneath. Charity turned, his body caught in the infinite reflections of the scrying pools and the odd mercurial quality of their silver light. She was once again viewing him as a portrait and this time it was of a younger man, uncertain, even timid in her presence. Age fell from his features, the depth of brown returned to his hair, large and plaintive eyes regarded her shyly, his tongue wetting dry and nervous lips.

‘Elsie?’

‘Mm?’

‘When you’re done, do you think we…’ he glanced above them up the carved steps to the mezzanine.

‘Will you’re soaking wet, you haven’t eaten properly and we need to get some rest, I hardly think that now is…’ she stopped as something vulnerable crossed his face and despite his best efforts he could not move it on. His old and confident mask seemed lost deep under black waters. His eyes looked brighter than before, larger, softer, the pupils wide. He looked afraid.

_Stay with me._

‘I just want to hold you,’ he said, ‘I…,’ he fiddled with the corner of the cloth about his shoulders, the slight swell of his belly visible through the gap in the material. ‘I need to be with you. I feel like I’m doing all of this wrong. My reaction, that argument, I hated every moment and I can’t make it feel better. God, I sound like such a child,’ he laughed mirthlessly and cast his eyes upwards.

Elsie stood and moved towards him, slipped her hands under the towel to where his skin was bare and warm, ran her palms soothingly down his biceps.

‘I’m so tired,’ he said, and for a moment she saw the boy in him, felt the quiet Star resting inside her peacefully and longed to have him feel the same respite.

‘We’re quite safe for the night. While the Star rests we do too, when she wakes we move on, I’m fairly sure that’s how it works. She is our protection now.’

‘That was always my role,’ Will said, ‘Now my unborn child appears to be doing a better job of it than me.’

‘I don’t think that is quite how you should see it,’ Elsie said gently. ‘She needs us both, I need you as much as ever. We work together, a triumvirate. Much stronger than just two, hmm?’

‘I don’t think I can do this,’ Will confessed, ‘I don’t think I’m up to…’

‘Stop,’ Elsie said, taking his face. ‘Stop, Will.’ She wiped away some tears with the edges of her thumbs. He looked down at her, eyes glassy, imploring. ‘Come,’ she said, ‘Let me hold you, as you asked.’

Timid. It was not a word she associated with Will Charity. Uncertain was another. She had seen him blush, but had never called him bashful, seen him embarrassed but not quite exactly shy, and even now she could not find the words to fit the man she held against her.

On the mezzanine a nest of blankets, rough spun but warm, was tucked into the dry stone crevice of the cavern wall. The ancient vines and ropes hung about them like a veil or the canopy above a marriage bed. The light from the fire below was just enough to cast a warming glow upon their skin and hide their fears in shadow. Elsie lay with her back against the wall and brought Will to her, divested of the last of his wet clothes but as yet still wrapped only in the drying cloths she had heated by the fire. He put his head upon her breast and closed his eyes, his arm wrapped around her middle. Every now and then it wandered with curiosity to her belly and she would feel the thrum of a magical and sleeping heartbeat beneath his touch.

Elsie touched his hair, the barest trace of damp now left within the thick curls. It was growing out a little since they first met but in the dim she could not find the grey that had struck her so before. She kept thinking of what he had said. They were racing to the end, he was racing towards… something, and the timbre of his voice had struck her with fear. Here, with her fingers in the knots of hair, on the muscles of his back she forced that fear to leave her. He was hers and they were safe, for now, and she was grateful for each day. Will made an unconscious sound at the back of his throat, nestled closer and she unlaced the front of her chemise enough so that his cheek might touch her skin.

‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he mumbled.

‘Hurt me?’

‘Scratchy,’ he lifted a tired hand and gestured at his face. ‘Takes a while to grow in soft, and you’re…’ a gentle kiss between her breasts, ‘So delicate.’

‘I think I can survive a little stubble, but I appreciate the thought.’ She felt him edge closer and his arms grow tight about her.

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Will, please don’t it’s all right.’

‘I am a coward, you were right.’

‘Stop it. You are not the first man to feel the fear of God upon him when a woman tells him she is with child, and nor will you be the last.’

‘It’s not that. It’s a feeling, I cannot shake it.’

‘What?’ she asked, his word sending prickles of unease through here.

‘I… I just feel…Tired,’ he said again.

Elsie stopped, looked down at the way he was cuddled against her, at the way he clung to her and made himself so small. Will whose usual position in their bed was draped like an oversized starfish or curled around her back protectively. She kissed his forehead, fell to stroking his back and then softly rolled him so that he lay right in the centre of the blankets with her by his side. Gently she stroked his cheek until he turned his head towards her, eyes fluttering sleepily closed. She traced the frown between his brows until the lines began to flatten.

‘Elsie…’

‘Shh.’

His nose came next, a little nip just at the sculpted tip which made the rest wrinkle and Charity try to bat her away but she returned pressing a firmer kiss to the organ until she forced an exasperated giggle from him.

‘What are you doing?’ he said. ‘M’sleepy.’

Sleepy. And sad. So very sad beneath it all. How often had he chased away her moods with his pranks and his games, his silly tricks and ridiculous stories. With the touch of his lips or his fingers. How often did he save her from herself. Elsie looked down at her wrist, where the marriage ribbon had been tied, lost now to the water, but she could feel it still. Whereas once he had been her rescuer and her hero, now she would take the turn for him. They were equal. Protected and Protector, no distinction.

‘Be quiet,’ she told him gently. ‘You have nothing cheerful to say, so you are banned from speaking at all.’ She saw his Adam’s apple bob and the ghost of a bemused smile and rewarded it by pressing her mouth to his chastely until his cheeks dimpled.

‘I love you,’ she said tracing the line of one brow until it softened. ‘I love you.’

She kissed his lips again and allowed their joining to deepen. Will’s arms held her gently but with no insistence even as she broke the kiss and plied the muscles of his neck with the wet line of her tongue. She nipped and sucked, felt him flex back into the blankets but then immediately return, needing her close, pulling her subtly so more of her weight might rest upon him, ground him, render him safe. She remembered the feeling. The heft of him above her, the way he pinned her arms, the control he took that left her free. She was too slight to offer the same to him but there were other ways to please him, to make him feel at ease, to use the weight of her body to take the weight from his soul.

Elsie kissed his collarbone, the dip at his throat, the valley between the muscles. She felt the thud of his heart under one palm as she nuzzled through the soft hair scattered across his chest, took in the scent of him that made her head buzz with desire and widened her kisses to his nipples, his belly, the trail of hair that marked the centre of him and led her down.

‘Ah!’

Just above his hip, she paused and sucked, laved and listened to his voice, the need surprising him, a sudden switch from tender comfort to a much more pressing want. He hardened quickly against her body and she smiled nuzzling closer to her target through the coarser hair below his waist, through the heavier scent of musk.

‘Elsie, wait, this isn’t what I…’

She looked up. ‘No?’ she asked

‘I didn’t mean to make you…’

She frowned, ‘You’re not making me anything, Will, you seemed to be liking it.’ She reached up and let her fingers melt into the softness of his relaxed belly. ‘Look you’re all floppy.’

He cocked an eyebrow, ‘Not all of me,’ he said in an attempt to be stern. ‘But I made it quite clear you need to rest.’ Elsie crawled up his body.

‘I am rested,’ she said and straddled his hips. Will moaned, responding much as she had expected and much as he always did to the feel of her hot and ready above him.

‘Elsie, no,’ he said firmly and made to push her down.

‘Will, you are warm and dry at last, and have been sore and cold and melancholy and I would please you.’ She leaned forward, ‘Or if you prefer, you have battled revolting creatures and pulled me from a frozen lake and I wish to reward your heroics.’

She hesitated, the hurt look on his face was transient but enough to tell her that he felt like no hero still. The thought of what he said about menfolk and their pride, their hopeless ego. Charty was no different from any other man in that respect in his deep seated need to be loved and adored and she knew him well enough now to sense some boundary could be pushed. She drew herself again over his member while leaning down to suck upon the soft flesh of his ear.

‘That’s…’ he said as she found his weak spot, ‘Mmm.’ Elsie ground forward a touch, pleased at his hummed response. ‘Wait, no!’

‘Will what _is_ the matter?’ She leaned back and looked at his face.

‘Well, you know… the…’ he gestured at her belly, ‘There’s a baby to consider.’

‘Don’t be silly!’

‘I am quite serious,’ he said, ‘This is not merely about a chap’s physical needs. There is a child to consider, and your health and our… intimacy and how that all… works’ he finished awkwardly.

‘Will!’

‘Sorry. I told you, this is all rather new and I’d never forgive myself if I… mmm..’’

Elsie kissed him deep and long, felt him relax under her at last, took a hold of his arms, his wrists, and forced them up parallel with his head, leaning her weight upon them. Will gasped, a sudden sound of release at the restriction and she felt him shift his thighs apart under her. She sucked upon his neck, began to retrace her trail of kisses down his body, felt his hand come to her hair helplessly as his chest rumbled.

‘Hands back above your head,’ she said and for just a beat he paused before withdrawing, relenting instead under the pattern of her weight as she worked about his abdomen with her hands and her mouth, let her teeth scrape the hip bone that had made him pant before. This time his hips surged right in encouragement, a choked back syllable escaped his throat, the tone one of demand and need. Elsie ran a hand between his thighs and his hips bucked again.

‘Ah, _ahh_ ,’ there was a whine now in his voice that she recognised from the times he had pinned her so, his mouth upon her privates, the crest of pleasure kept at bay by tiny movements of his tongue and her frustration high. She let the soft skin of her cheek skim his member, felt his back come off the blankets and leaned down hard.

‘Uh!’ his hand shot back amongst her hair but this time she let it bide, looking up to find his neck arched and teeth gritted. He was beside himself with need and for a fleeting moment Elsie wondered if it was simply all too much, if she had gone too far, for he had never once requested such an act of her. Will worshipped her and fed her needs, bathed in her own pleasure, but rarely made to ask for one thing or another, never made mention of such a thing as a lady’s mouth upon his manhood. Elsie faltered, inexperience catching her again and cautiously she brought a hand to where he was hard. Will let out another high pitched whine at the gentleness of her touch.

She squeezed. Ran her hand a steady length of him and back, here at least the act was familiar.

‘God, Elsie, God please.’

‘What do you want, Will tell me,’ she saw his jaw clamped shut, his brow furrow further.

‘Will this is not the time to be a gentleman about it,’ she said, impressed by her own courage.

‘God almighty, woman, you’re…this is torment.’

‘Will..?’

‘Your mouth, I want your mouth,’ he said desperately. The word pierced through her with a thrill, the novelty of such a forbidden act, rumoured but never spoken of in the society she kept, the feel of him heavy in her hand, the damp under her fingertips, the pleading in his voice. What she would give to hear it over, the barest naked need exposed to her alone. Her heart hammered and then she saw him draw an arm across his face in shame.

‘God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you are not some portside doxy…’ he started and his free hand left her hair, made to move her away. She grabbed it quickly pinned it to his side and let her tongue map the shape of him, twitching, throbbing under her touch.

Will let out a groan that seemed to relieve every tension in his body at once. His back arched again but this time there was ecstasy upon his face and when his lips parted, they parted into a smile. He found her hair again and entwined his fingers, gave the barest hint of pace with the pressure of his palm, his hips undulating softly with each movement.

‘Oh, Elsie… like that just…’ he sighed, ‘Just let me stay here a little longer.’

There had been many and varied acts of lovemaking between the two before now. Charity as always an enthusiastic and generous lover blessed with physical strength and considerable experience, but usually there was a freneticism which drove him on towards the end, finishing and starting over, pleasing her in a dozen different ways but never truly being at ease. Not within himself, not like this. She watched as waves of pleasure ran through each easy muscle, as his breath came in deep sighs as nothing short of laughter tickled him in pleasure. He was lost in it, utterly lost until at last he opened his eyes and took a bleary moment to reorientate. Gently he swept Elsie’s hair back.

‘Up, up here,’ he motioned and wrapped her closely in his arms. On their sides he kissed her neck and nuzzled closer than before, the press of him hard against her belly and the movement of his hips a little off rhythm. He took her hand and moved it between them, his lips now on her ear, breath hot.

‘I want to hold you while you do it,’ he whispered.

‘You don’t want me to…’ she glanced down, ‘I would, Will.’

She watched his face twitch in arousal at her words. ‘No… I mean God, yes, one day but, not tonight. I need you here, _with_ me. Let me finish, hold me while I finish.’

Something in the moment shifted, his need was raw but his heart was tender, he drew back enough to see her and his eyes glittered like jewels; open, dark. ‘Let me look at you,’ he said with just a touch of shyness as he stroked her hand along his length. His breath caught, his hand squeezed around hers and he fought to keep his steady pace, bring himself to his conclusion in her grasp. ‘Please let me look at you when it happens.’

She gave it to him willingly, her touch, her gaze and whatever he could see within. He kissed her once more briefly before he dared not shut his eyes and she felt hot breath pant against her cheek as he came close. The sound he made was purest pleasure, sweet relief, it sent heat straight to her core and made her skin burn with hunger, but the look within his eyes defied description. Galaxies could not have been more beautiful.

Sweet dreams, sated, easy pictures, softest sounds from summer nights. Elsie woke in the stillness of the cavern, the fire below burned out and only the scrying pools like mirrors shining silver in the gloom. Something moved, a drop of water, a ripple in the pool. She rubbed her eyes and peered to find her focus in darkness of its golden frame.

And then she saw it had a face.


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to LillysoftheValley for their help with this chapter.

Elsie’s bare feet left silver footprints as she moved down the stone steps from the mezzanine, a glittering trail fading in her wake. Perhaps she was not awake at all because she felt no sense of fear or surprise. Something simply called her, told her not to rouse Will; something in the dark eyes in the mirrored scrying pool that she approached. She knew them, recognised them from the moment under water when she had almost drowned, but also from a time preceding that.

Long ago Elsie had seen a vision, of Will captured in a temple, the moonlight bearing down on him through a high window as his life was threatened, and she had felt a part of herself exist in that moment from near twenty years before. A part of her had connected with him and with his captors, and its voice could be heard in whispers. It was a part of her that pre-dated the time she lived in now, something which was not herself at all but had been with her always.

 _Do you understand? Who you are, who you used to be?_ The voice was timeless, felt rather than heard within her mind. _What is it that you seek?_

Elsie crossed the last few feet to the scrying pool at the left of the clearing. She looked at the face, the floating features on a black background which barely gave the hint of an identity.

‘I don’t know…’ she said helplessly and watched as the eyes tilted in curiosity as though something feline had cocked its head. ‘Sometimes I think I know and then it just slips through my fingers. I can’t grasp it….’

_The connection is weak but it grows stronger the longer the Three are as One._

‘The Three?’

The eyes appeared to smile and for a moment there was the impression of a delicate feminine face about them, of a noble brow and high fine cheekbones, full lips and deep honey coloured skin. The image flickered, a band of gold around the woman’s hair, another at her throat, the emblem of a star. It was different from the amulets she and Will wore but it was unmistakable. The woman moved her neck like a serpent her eyes scrutinising Elsie’s reaction as the movement shimmered, reflected on the ground between them.

Elsie sucked in a breath, her skin running cold from the chill of the cavern and the presence of that being. Awake then, not a dream and not a vision but something from another world reaching out to her.

_There’s no need to be afraid._

‘Who are you?’

_You know._

_‘_ My child?’

_A part of her, though she is all of me._

‘The Star?’

The face flickered again and only the eyes remained. The night sky emerged around them streaked with thin skeins of clouds. Slowly the moon came into view at one end of the horizon and the darkness drew back a little. Elsie watched as night cycled into day, the moon rising and falling, the sun taking its place.

_In the beginning the heavens were empty, and the Sun was very sad. He shone the length of the day and nights alone and the earth below was scorched and dry. Nothing could grow in the heat of the desert and the living things hid under rocks and in tunnels beneath the earth. The Sun was filled with sorrow._

The image cycled on until the moon came back into view.

_At last he created his companion the Moon, but he shone so brightly he could not find her in the heavens. One day desperate to see his love, he hid behind the mountains. The Moon rose and shone with her own white light upon the earth. The soil cooled, the crops grew and the animals came out of their burrows. From that moment the Sun and the Moon agreed to share each day so that life upon the earth could flourish._

Elsie watched as the cycle of day and night continued and beneath the heavens ancient Abyssinia with its temples and markets, people and animals began to thrive. Day cycled into night and on each pass she noticed a change in the sky. One by one the stars that made up the constellations appeared. The face in the mirror appeared and smiled.

_The Sun and Moon loved one another very much and they had many offspring, but one in particular, their youngest, would prove to be a favourite although she was a disobedient child._

High up in the heavens one star shone brighter than the others. The image flickered and the dark eyes of the storyteller twinkled with mischief. Elsie couldn’t help but smile.

‘That’s you isn’t it?’ she said and was rewarded with the echo of girlish laughter she had heard in the lake.

_The Star was a friendly child and she wanted to play with the children on the earth but her parents had told her no, that creatures of the heavens must never be amongst the people for their power was too great and man was greedy. The Star watched the children play and saw in them only innocence so one day, against her parents’ wishes she came to Abyssinia._

_She went to spend time with the children of the world, but her presence changed everything for all its people. Crops flourished no matter what the time of year. The sick were healed and lives prolonged. Babies were born to barren wombs and all the people along the Nile were rich and successful. They built great pyramids and mined for gold and diamonds. The earth was bountiful and everything the Star touched was blessed._

‘The Star was responsible for all that prosperity?’

_I was._

The expression in the eyes turned sad.

_I underestimated man’s weakness until it was too late. I didn’t mean to cause trouble, I had only wanted to play._

She appealed to Elsie, holding her gaze as though seeking forgiveness. For a moment the child in her was obvious, naïvety and regret mixed in amongst her superior magic and her godlike power. She had pulled too many toys at once from her toybox and now they lay broken and confused about her feet. At last she looked away and Elsie saw her regard the image of Abyssina with sorrow.

_The longer I was on earth the more I saw my mistake. I learned I was responsible for men’s greed and cruelty. For jealousy, envy and covetousness. For the wars that raged between tribes. Soon the miracles turned sour and I could see only the sorrow my presence brought to mankind. My parents had been right to warn me. I should never have come here. So I tried to leave._

The tone of the voice changed, and Elsie watched as the features of the Star’s face became less ethereal and more human again, but younger, so much younger than before.

_On earth I had taken the form of a little girl, but I had not been careful to hide my magic. When I tried to leave the men took me to the temple and kept me there as their priestess. I was a creature of the heavens, but I was still a child, and I did not realise my mistake._

‘Your mistake?’

_I had the ability to take the shape of a child, but I could not now change back and ascend. The magics of the heavens were not available to me. I could cast a spell to bring about the rain, I could conjure handfuls of diamonds, but I could not go home. I was trapped._

The image sharpened, the voice became lighter, the face in the mirror looked back at Elsie with tear filled eyes. A little girl just as the Star described no more than eight or nine years old. She wore the ceremonial garb of the temple, there were gold beads in her hair and kohl liner about her eyes and about her neck an amulet. Not cast in silver like Elsie’s, not Celtic in its style, but recognisable as the symbol of a Star.

This then was the Star as she had once been on earth, in Abyssinia.

Did Elsie look now on the past or on another world? Was this an image from twenty years before, or two thousand before that? The child seemed to be watching her own reflection in a scrying pool a thousand miles away, in the distance of another time, but something linked her still to Elsie, something that made the tears brim. They were connected. She wondered if when this child looked into her pool she saw Elsie’s face from a far off future.

Perhaps she saw nothing. Perhaps she was just the image of a long gone ghost, but at one point she had been a living breathing child and it hurt somehow to see her, alone in the reflection of the pool. Elsie felt the pulse of magic around her baby and grew immediately protective of the girl.

 _You almost have it,_ came the voice, _Who she is, why she matters, what you have to do._

‘She’s the Star, the embodiment of you on earth.’

 _The Star is within her, yes. But who is_ she?

The star’s voice faded and the next voice that spoke echoed in the cavern as real as Elsie’s.

‘My name is Ahmes,’ the little girl said looking into the pool, ‘Child of the Moon, and I was a priestess at the Temple of the Red Sun in Abyssinia.’

‘Ahmes? Will’s Ahmes? The little girl he couldn’t save? That doesn’t make sense.’

‘There have been many of us from one generation to the next but…’ Ahmes started.

 _…we are all of us the Star, we are all of us Ahmes,_ both voices said as one.

Elsie stared. ‘No, no… The Red Sun it’s a Celtic mythology, we’re on our way to the Barrow, where it all started, where these amulets were forged. How can this be to do with Abyssinia? With what happened to Will there?’

The Stars voice returned in her mind as she watched the little dead girl gaze silently into the mirror. Motionless and empty. An echo, a memory, a ghost.

_The Sun and the Moon were frantic when their daughter disappeared but they knew the earth would suffer if one of them left the heavens to retrieve her. They sent instead a part of each of themselves to humanity, so that together they could summon enough magic to bring her home. So it was that a man and a woman were born upon the earth and deep within each of them was a shard of each deity. Where they were born is irrelevant. That is a distinction made by mankind not by us. The earth is small compared to the heavens and time moves differently for us. The Sun and Moon felt that once they were upon the earth they would find one another quickly and the Star would sense them and be reunited._

Around Elsie’s neck the Red Sun glowed softly. ‘You’re talking about Will and I aren’t you? Our ancestors who have been wearing the amulets were the Sun and Moon Gods upon earth seeking their child.’

_There were no amulets then, but men are reluctant to relinquish that that brings them fortune and the plans of the Sun and Moon went quickly awry. They were not left in peace to pursue their goal. They had not reckoned on mankind’s greed. The man and woman had power and men want power to be controlled and put to selfish uses. Your ancestors were quickly found and placed in chains by the Celts. In Abyssinia men locked The Star away in a temple. Word travels, through mystics and scrying pools. Soon the most powerful witches had created the Order of the Red Sun to control all three of us but then they filled our human minds with lies so that we would never know of one another._

‘Lies?’

_The Arcana described how you must be protected but from what, from whom?’_

‘I…’ Elsie stumbled.

_So many rules by which you have to live. So much of life lived in isolation. Even your protector must never come into contact with you. Did you ever ask why?_

‘I have a feeling the reasons the Arcana gave are about to be dispelled.’

_Together you can release me and I can go home to the heavens to shine once more._

‘And that’s the last thing the Order wants,’ said Ahmes. She locked eyes with Elsie and she realised that the Star was speaking through her, using her long dead human body as a puppet.

‘If I leave I take my power with me and you will lose your magics. All these years the Red Sun has worked to keep the two halves of the Order apart. It has worked so long to do so it has forgotten why and who we three once were. The Protector and Protected have turned into one legend while The Child of the Moon remains another. The priestesses in your country know nothing about the heritage in mine. We use different texts and different spells, worship at different altars but unbeknown to any of our followers our Gods are the same, our strength comes from the same source. And that source is me.’

Elsie covered her mouth and nose with both hands, tried to steady her breathing. She shook out her arms and the tingle in her fingertips.

‘Are you telling me the whole order, everything we’ve known about it, everything written in the Arcana isn’t about protecting me at all, it’s about making you stay on earth to… to feed it with your power?’

‘A whole civilisation bloomed because of me, they didn’t want to let me go, Adato and the others, they are the last vestiges of that civilisation. They thought that I was gone but I have only been hiding. Now they have realised, through the signs, that I exist still in their world, that I will be reborn and they are coming for me by coming after you.’

Elsie cradled her belly instinctively.

‘They thought that you were gone? After Ahmes died? Where did you go, how did you hide?’

‘Only the mortal body dies,’ the little girl said with the casual shrug of an immortal. ‘There have been many deaths but the Star lives on. Usually it passes from one priestess to the next but in that year there was no priestess ready to receive the star, the girl died too soon.’

‘So how did you escape Adato?’

‘The Sun found me.’

‘What?’

Ahmes smiled. ‘I can show you. There is so much you have not seen or understood, so much he could not tell you. You do not have the gift of omnipotence, how strange that must be. I forget you carry but a tiny part of my mother within you, whereas I am whole.’

Something glowed in the air about the girl’s face and Elsie felt a charge of authority. She and Will might well share a connection to the Sun and Moon deities, but this girl was another thing entirely and the knowledge of it made her uneasy, almost distrustful, as though the Star might grow weary of them at any moment, find itself bored of its new toys.

‘Look now,’ Ahmes said stepping back from her own scrying pool, ‘You’ll see how Will saved me and what I need from him now.’

‘What do you want from him? Has he not suffered enough? He thinks he failed you, he’s consumed with remorse.’

‘He did not fail. What he did for me is something for which I will always be grateful.’

‘So Ahmes didn’t die?’

‘The death of one mortal girl could not be halted,’ the Star confirmed with Ahmes’ own voice, ‘But it was not failure on his part. He cannot remember, perhaps if he knew...’

The little girl glanced over her shoulder and smiled, the world around her becoming clearer, the interior of the temple, the elaborate braiding in her hair, the unconscious man tied to the pillar in his British army dress uniform. ‘The first months and years after our meeting are lost to him,’ she said contemplatively.

‘Will,’ Elsie breathed and stepped towards the scrying pool. She placed her hand upon it like the glass of a mirror and recoiled when her hand felt wet. Silver raindrops fell from her fingertips.

Ahmes turned back to her curiously.

‘Magic, even good magic, can be destructive,’ she said. ‘The kind of magic we use is powerful, ancient. The magic in me moreso than any other. The human bodies I inhabit are fragile things, not designed to hold it. It erases memory. It shortens human life. The child priestesses whose lives I lived have been consumed by its force even before their sacrifice at the hands of the Order. They would not have lived to see womanhood even if kept safe, my being burns through every one.’

‘That’s awful,’ Elsie said, ‘Using children that way to sustain yourself. Would you do that now to my child?!’

‘Do not dare cast judgement upon the Gods,’ the girl rounded on her suddenly, her voice a horrible mixture of a child’s tantrum and danger. ‘My energy had to be contained! Must continue to be for each day I linger upon your earth. Your fragile communities and weak bodies would be destroyed if you were to look upon me in my true form. For the safety of your species there must be sacrifices made!’

The cavern around Elsie shook with the force of her words and she staggered back a pace. Finally, with the place growing silent and still she watched as the girl in the mirror appeared to gather herself, but the tell tale glow behind her eyes was still visible. Water dripped from the ceiling, at a distance she heard rock fall into the lake.

‘I did not want to hurt anyone,’ the Star admitted shamefully, her presentations swinging wildly from an angry god to a repentant child. ‘That is why, when he arrived, when I saw he had the Sun within I thought he would be strong enough… I chose him because he was strong.’

She stooped and brushed Will’s hair gently out of his face.

‘But I see now,’ she said, ‘That I hurt him too. There are gaps in his mind and damage to his body. Too fast time ticks within. He knows, deep down, he does not have the words or understanding, but he knows and yet still he carries on. Peculiar, how he runs towards his destiny, when his destiny is so very, very final.’

‘What are you talking about? What’s wrong with him?’ Elsie said.

Ahmes looked at her with the Stars ancient all-knowing gaze. ‘They new grey in his hair, the pains in all his joints, the fatigue, so tired. Age is catching him too quickly and the end is coming. For years my magic has kept him safe, brought him luck, saved his life when any other man might die. All those elaborate stories he is wont to tell, his daring deeds and exploits, he has lived longer than any Protector has before him but ah, that has come with a price, and he must pay it now. Time is running out.’

Elsie felt a spasm of horror. ‘No! Wait, no! You’re wrong, you’re wrong!’

‘I am right,’ said the Star with another warning flash of something in her eyes. ‘The end is coming and you know that he feels it, you see it in him too. There is sadness,’ she hesitated and looked away for a moment frowning as though understanding eluded her, ‘There _is_ sadness but… You must play your roles, this story must reach its conclusion, you must help me to go home. That is your purpose… as….as my parents in this realm.’

Elsie looked hard into the dark eyes of the girl Ahmes, at the Star who had for so long been trapped in mortal bodies, whose essence now lay within her own as her growing child. Interesting how the sadness of Will’s mortal death touched her despite herself. Had the Star lived too long in human bodies with human connections? Parents. Will and Elsie were her parents here on earth and therein lay the key.

This dangerous but strangely vulnerable child-god was commanding her parents’ representatives to do her bidding and yet when the Moon and Sun sent parts of themselves down to the earth it was with the authority to retrieve and discipline that child. That was their mission still as given to Will and Elsie by far more powerful Gods than the Star. The Star was a child when she first came to earth and remained a child now and, as Mrs Pence was fond of saying, no child should give speak back or give orders to her elders.

‘You think you can dictate to me what Will and I must do,’ Elsie said with a steely look. ‘I’m not sure I like your attitude young lady.’

Ahmes looked at her with shock.

‘If you had that kind of power would you not have saved yourself long before now?’ Elsie questioned. ‘You found the Sun, what prevented you from finding the Moon, from finding me too? Now that we are together why is it we must run? A handful of mercenaries should be no match for a God? Should not a deity be able to fight back the possessed and undead? A pretty spell to light the way, a little conjuring, could you not do better than that?’

The girl’s eyes grew cold.

‘I thought so,’ Elsie said, ‘You are weaker here on earth than you at first described. You put on a good show with light and sound but your armoury is limited that’s why your parents had to come back here to fetch you.’ She folded her arms. ‘Remember who I am to you in this dimension and give me the respect a mother deserves. You cannot always have your preference in this life. You are the Star but you currently inhabit my child, in my body. If you want my help you are going to have to work with me to help all of us, as a family,’ Elsie said. ‘And we will start with Will.’

‘You think that you can save him,’ Ahmes said comprehending and cocked her head slightly, thousands of years of intellect barely hidden in a child’s eyes. ‘You think you can find a way.’

‘I think you _are_ the way.’

A smile, calculating but amused by the strategy.

‘Well, I came to earth to play. How then do we start this game?’ the Star said.

‘Show me what happened,’ Elsie said, ‘He cannot remember, so show me now. Show me all of it, how he saved you, how your magic came to harm him, what torments him in his sleep, tell me now what afflicts him and how to help him. Only then will I help you. I will not give up on him and nor should you, he is your father.’

Ahmes’ big brown eyes glowed briefly golden with a strange sense of pride.

‘You love him very much,’ she stated.

‘Yes.’

A gracious inclination of the head. ‘I have been without my family a long time,’ the Star said, ‘and I have been hidden from the peoples of the earth some twenty years. Sometimes I forget why it is that I came here, why I admired them so. Sometimes I forget, their capacity for love, how hard they will fight, how tenacious human souls can be. You are as strong as him. Stronger, perhaps.’

The scrying pool shimmered and Ahmes picked a little bowl from the dusty floor of the temple close to where Will was tied. She reached into the pool and filled it with silvery liquid that transformed quickly into water, looked back at Elsie with a smile.

‘Watch,’ she said.


	31. Chapter 31

Abyssinia, 1868.

On the first day Ahmes had meant to ignore him, the white man in the red uniform who had been brought to her chambers for tied and bound. She had seen it all before, the capture of an officer, the extortion of his battalion for money or information. She was a child. It was not her business, so she moved about the temple to tend what was, and ignored the quiet sounds of suffering in the chamber behind the altar room. The captured men were never there long, never spoke her language and never cared for her presence, but as she kneeled to pray to her own tiny altar by her bedspace she found herself watching the officer’s chest rise and fall slowly and lent a prayer on his behalf.

On the second and the third day he made more noise, the distinctive sound of suffering as his consciousness drifted, begging in the chill of the chamber, muttering the name of his own strange God. In the torchlight she could see the bruising filling out his previously sculpted features, the dark trail of blood from his hairline, once shorn close but now rebelling in tiny curls. Lord Adato had paid a call to his victim that third afternoon, impatient that ransom had been unsuccessful, peeved that a man who clearly held position in his battalion had been forgotten, and that because of that forgetting, Adato had no gold. He kicked the prisoner about the gut and rained blows onto his face, but whatever Adato wanted from him he failed to gain and he left in fury, tattered robes flying behind him.

‘Water,’ the man pleaded in Aramaic and Ahmes held back, evading his gaze as she detoured about the chamber in shadows. ‘Please, I know you are here, I won’t hurt you. All I ask is water.’ But Ahmes was afraid and took herself again to the straw bed space out of the lamplight. She watched him half the night unable to rest while he was so pained, confused as to why it mattered so, why him, why now.

On the fourth day Ahmes stood by the scrying pool at the centre of the room and looked at the feverish man just a few feet in front of her. She had never seen a soldier last so long within the chamber and part of her demanded to know why. It urged her forward, ignoring her childish arguments and fears. Whether a ransom was paid ,or a man’s body gave out without water or care, a fourth day as Adato’s prisoner was unheard of, so what did this man have that others lacked? He was just as sick and just as beaten and still he pleaded. On and on.

‘Water,’ he breathed. This soldier was more persistent than the others. Beaten and bloodied he slouched against a narrow pillar, tied close to it by tight ropes so that his shoulders were pitched at a painful angle behind him and his wrists met behind the stone. Beneath the bruising on his face his features looked young, but his jacket was festooned in golden braid to denote his high rank. He must have been important to someone, so why then did nobody come to find him?

Ahmes chastised herself for asking silly questions which were none of her business. ’Keep your eyes down and your mouth shut,’ Adato would tell her and she dare not misbehave; her master showed no mercy. If she was caught gawking at the captive and not arranging today’s offerings for the men’s’ feast tonight she would be beaten. She had duties to attend to which could not wait, so quashing her long dead curiosity she slipped out of the chamber and made her way back and forth between the offerings left in the altar room of the temple to the place Adato liked best to hold his feasts, lugging baskets of peaches and pears, apples and figs in her thin scarred arms.

She was just turned eight, but she knew the value of punctuality, the importance of quiet appeasement and how to dodge the hardest of the blows. She knew not to cast aspersions or make argument, eye contact or break routine. She knew her place, because unlike so many others living in freedom, she knew her end, for she had witnessed it already. And that was what prevented her rebellion, the images of that moment, of the mutilation and blood shed in the name of sacrifice. She would do nothing which might bring it closer.

At the age of five Ahmes had been taken and brought by Adato to the temple and while restrained, watched in horror as her predecessor, a girl of around twelve, was tortured and scarified upon the very altar she now tended. She had seen the young priestess’ power pour from her at the moment of her demise only to be pinned by its tendrils as it wrapped itself about Ahmes and forced itself deep within her fragile human body.

She had been unsure what would happen next, what message the God inside would convey, but it lay there still, dormant and uncaring. Rarely it would anger and when it did it felt like it was a petulant misplaced demon, not a God. Ahmes learned not to venture near the part of herself it inhabited for she somehow sensed it would expedite her own ending upon a capricious whim.

But Adato, he wanted to provoke it, wake it, entice it with sacrifice or offering; he wanted only to harness its power and for that it must show itself. It was why he kept the temple operational, for long ago, he said, the Demon-God within had been worshipped and revealed its power to the people. The legends carved and painted on all the walls spoke of its great magic and how it had been lent to the people of the Nile.

Well, men still had greed for such prosperity, and Adato wanted it, how he wanted it. He and all his followers, but Ahmes knew that the thing within her had no sympathy with man, no interest in their ambitions, it slept and it slept and it longed for something else entirely that Ahmes could feel but not quite understand, but for one aspect alone with which she sympathised. The flickering force of the spirit that lived inside her was tired and angry with its captors. It wanted to leave, but it could not.

And now it was stirring and Ahmes kept looking at the man tied to the pillar, fighting the urge to go to him and help, trying to be the good little girl who knew her place and kept her silence, obeyed her human masters while the God tried to tempt her with rebellion. Priestess was her title, but she was nothing but a slave, in body and in thought, fighting a constant war between he sense of self preservation and the games a God would play.

Adato had all his men about him on the fifth night roaring and feasting long past sunset so it was not until late that Ahmes found herself by the scrying pool again looking at the man. He had ceased to moan and plead, and he looked so very much worse in the torchlight than he had before. She picked up her little drinking bowl for the dozenth time since his arrival and filled it. Lingered, emptied it, refilled, utterly torn. The consequences of misbehaviour were so dire, but she had to, she had to go to him. Of the cacophony of voices tearing her apart, one as stronger, and older, than all the others.

The man’s brow was sticky with a new sweat and the deep wound on his head was oozing again. He was sick, very sick. The blood ran thick and dark down one temple and matted his hair, crusted the few days of beard growth and the longer sideburns. No prisoner had ever lasted so long but if she ignored what she could so plainly see then surely, he would die. Ahmes knew that many of the captives did, and she had turned her back as they had been carried off for torture, but never had she seen the actual demise and the realisation frightened her. He could die and she would be alone with him. She who had the chance to help albeit but a little in his final days. Such callousness was unforgivable to her long neglected heart. Her existence had been a cruel one, but she had not become cruel herself. Her mind and soul began a tussle. She should lay down in her straw bed and sleep, turn her back to his suffering…

But.

But something inside her was waking. Seeing. Commanding. And it would only grow louder, fiercer, as it had before.

_Go to him._

Ahmes froze, tears coming quickly to her eyes. It had been long months since she had heard the voice and she crumbled, the bowl tipping and emptying as she retreated and crouched by the pool, both hands covering her ears.

‘No, no, no, no…’

But the voice would not be silenced, and it clamoured in her head. Echoing in layers over itself until there was no escape from the noise, rising and rising, punctuated with wild screams and cruel laughter.

_Do as I command, go to him! Go to him he is our salvation! Go, you stupid girl, so stupid, so cowardly. Afraid of men, afraid of torture. I lay not one hand on you, but your torment will be greater than any man might try in vain to bestow. Do as I say. Go to him._

Ahmes rocked back on her heels, squeezed her eyes shut. What if it was a trick? The voice could be so tricksy, it might command her tend to the man only to have Adato find them. The voice knew of the past but it saw also the future, found its entertainment in Ahmes. She cried hard that it might leave her be now but it would no cease. ‘No, no! Please, no!’

There was an enormous crack in the air, like lighting born within the room, and a finger of blazing light landed across Ahmes’ back, searing, the smell of burning in the air.

_GO!_

Sobbing she scrambled to place the bowl in the pool, filling it quickly and stumbling over her own limbs as she faced the soldier again. The force of the magic within propelled her forward as though pulled upon a thick rope, but then her fear froze her once again. Breathing with difficulty, her throat choking, she took a step forward and held out the bowl at arm’s length to the unconscious man, edged another step casting nervous eyes over his face for any sign he might move suddenly, glancing at the entryway for signs of Adato. Seeing nothing, she moved forward, lifted the bowl to the prisoner’s lips. They were dry and sore, and she allowed the water to wet them just a little, but he seemed to lack the reflex to drink. She withdrew, hesitating, wondering if she ought to speak or touch him to wake him.

But she was too hesitant for the perpetrator of her inner voice. Suddenly the thing within grew impatient and seized at her limbs almost wrenching them from the girl’s sockets and with a petulant noise Ahmes saw herself throw the water in the soldier’s face. The man took a deep gasping breath, spluttering and coughing, shaking his head to clear his eyes of water and wet curls plastered to his forehead.

‘What the bloody hell do you think…’ he objected indignantly with a burst of energy and strained hard against his bindings, but his strength waned quickly, and he slumped coughing weakly and painfully against his pillar. ‘Christ,’ he spluttered with a groan. ‘Come back here!’ he ordered in English his voice weak, but his sense of command still intact, ‘how dare you assault a member of her Majesty’s…’ and then he trailed off catching a glance at his surroundings.

Ahmes, still shocked that she had done something so rash, and frightened by the power making itself known within her, had scampered back, her confidence shattered, and knelt by the scrying pool again, tugging her battered dress down over her legs and trying to be as small as possible. Now she poked her head up enough to see that the man was examining the chamber with increasing concern. The sandy stone, the rich hieroglyphics kept pristine from time by the darkness of the temple. The distinct lack of anybody except the little girl he had frightened into a corner.

‘Ah…’ he said in a quieter tone, ‘I appear to be in a spot of bother.’


	32. Chapter 32

Abyssinia 1868

On the sixth night the man was waiting for her when she came back from her duties, he smiled through the new cuts and bruises on his face when he saw her and she saw the lines about his eyes crease prettily. They were unusual in one as young as he purported to be and spoke of a heart which was warm. She wanted so much to trust him; had been so alone in the temple these last three years, but that afternoon a reminder of why she kept her distance had been given.

Adato had sent his underling Zetu for a further interrogation of the now conscious prisoner while they waited for contact from the British army. He had come armed with instruments to inflict pain and a dozen creative means by which to extract useful information about the British army’s plans and movements. Cloistered in the temple as she was Ahmes knew little about the war which had just finished, knew not if her family had been caught up in it or if the few stories she heard were true, but the soldier added nothing to her knowledge or to Zetu’s. Adato’s men would come again and hurt him in the days that followed, but the prisoner would bear it silently, bleeding and pained. Ahmes went to him a few times with her bowl and rag and cleaned his face, while the man stayed still and quiet so as not to cause her alarm. Later in the evenings it became clear he trying to make some kind of plan for escape and that he appealed to her for aid. Ahmes, growing used to him was no longer afraid, but did think that he was quite mad for even hoping to escape. Nobody had ever escaped, and nobody ever would.

‘I say you couldn’t help a chap out could you and loosen these ropes?’ the man said once she had finished wiping his face that sixth night. ‘I’d be awfully grateful?’

His Aramaic was passable enough that she got the gist, but she did not like what he asked for one bit. Ahmes shook her head very, very firmly. Adato would beat her if she helped and the man was found to be free, and while she was no longer afraid she did not know anything about this man except he seemed to have an incredible ability to survive when others would have died, and he had fought in a war which had only recently ended, but during which he must surely have killed people just like herself. He was quite literally defying death, and while she had seen no evidence of magic it was quite possible he had some at his disposal. She could almost feel it. Ahmes ignored his request and went and sat down to chew on her meagre meal, taken from the now half rotten offerings on the altar.

‘No?’ called the man as she turned. ‘Right, fair enough, very sensible of you, _clever girl,_ ’ he said and wriggled, ‘Although my arms have gone a bit numb,’ and then he looked about him with some interest, ‘I’ve been having a little read of the old hieroglyphics, you know, it’s a hobby of mine and I haven’t much else to do at the moment. I must say I was much more interested in coming here for the history than the war, but that’s very much how the British travel, slaughtering all before them, conquering and generally upsetting people. I joined for adventure, I half forgot about the killing aspect… oh please don’t be afraid,’ he added quickly trying to reassure Ahmes as much as possible, ‘You’re never in any danger from me. Some of the men, they… well you don’t need to know what they do with the girls they come across here,’ and his face flickered between sadness and anger. ‘It’s not at all how I expected it to be,’ he finished, the weight of disappointment in his eyes.

‘Anyway,’ he went on suddenly, dismissing the unpleasant memories and lost hopes , ‘This is a temple, but quite an unusual one, eh? Not your standard Egyptian Gods, a whole different theology, it’s a mystery and I like a mystery. I say are we in a pyramid? The temples are usually more open, this one is all narrow passages and gloom. Could it be we’re inside an actual pyramid? That’s very interesting isn’t it?’ and despite his injuries he grinned happily. ‘This must be one of the false burial chambers, always wanted to look inside one of these, all sorts of exciting booby traps and funny keys to things, right up my street. The British Museum is said to be sending quite a few expeditions out this way to find these things, wouldn’t it be jolly if they stumbled on this one now? Hello chaps, have a pyramid and a strange new mythology and could you undo these ropes while you’re at it?’

He chuckled. ‘One can wish. Oh, my name’s Will Charity by the way. Call me Will.’ He smiled cheerfully and the effect strange when contrasted with his cuts and the dusty little chamber. ‘What’s your name?’ he said convivially.

‘Ahmes,’ Ahmes said, wondering how a man chained up in an ancient tomb could be quite so interested in its history.

‘Child of the Moon,’ Will said on hearing her name, and her eyes widened. How did a British soldier know about her name? ‘Tell me then, child of the moon, do you happen to know quite how I got into this pickle. The last I remember I….’ and he frowned, ‘Well I’m not terribly sure what I was doing. I’m going to hazard a guess and say drinking, what with victory recently and all that, and the boys do like to get a skinful in celebration. I must have left the tavern on my own, I do that sometimes, all that colonial business has a slightly bitter taste. We are after all what we are born to, we don’t choose our way at birth, no person is better than another to my mind, they just got luckier sometimes. Anyway yes, probably left the tavern and then someone…’ he frowned, and a cut reopened on his brow, a slow thread of blood wending its way down his temple again.

‘You were attacked, like the men before you. You’ve been here for many days. Oh! You’re still bleeding,’ Ahmes said gesturing to his head and chewing a fig.

‘Usually am,’ Will said. ‘Did you say days? Hang about I’m not feeling at my sharpest. You couldn’t bring me a little of that water to drink? I mean don’t throw it in my face. I appreciate I could do with a wash but I’m a little thirsty.’

‘Um…’ she hesitated and felt a push from the back of her mind before she quickly scrabbled to the pool again, hurrying like a paper in the wind, knocking objects in her path.

‘Wouldn’t mind a fig, either?’ she heard Will say.

Ahmes eyed him suspiciously and was met with another startlingly bright grin. She half expected missing teeth. Captives were always spitting teeth out into the dust. One of Adato’s men had a necklace of them, but no Will Charity and a perfect set.

Ahmes filled the bowl and then soaked a little cloth from the pool intending to wipe off the wound on his head. She balanced two figs on the side of the bowl and slowly made her way to him never taking her big uncertain eyes from his.

‘So who is it behind these attacks?’ Will said.

‘Lord Adato and his men, they take the soldiers and sell them back. They brought you here six days ago,’ she said tipping the bowl so he could drink. Will’s pupils dilated a little at the news and he looked nothing short of stricken. She lowered the empty bowl.

‘Six days?’ he said. ‘My company has probably moved off by now. How will I ever find them in this state. I won’t be able to keep pace. Wait. I can track them, like a hunter, I can use the sun, ask at villages, don’t panic Charity you can find a group of soldiers dressed in red in a golden dessert…..’ but he did appear to be panicking all the same. He glanced up at her with unexpectantly full and soulful eyes.

‘They won’t be far,’ Ahmes heard herself say in an odd voice half disembodied from herself. She lifted a fig to his mouth, ‘The British don’t know how to travel well in a desert. If you take a camel, you’ll move faster than a horse.’ She stopped, mouth open, the retreating echoes of the words seeming to trickle through her chest. Alarmed she held a hand over her mouth, it was probably years since she had ever spoken to much and so freely and she was not even certain it had been her.

‘Thank you,’ Will said with a gentle smile, ‘That’s a very helpful idea. Thank you Ahmes.’

‘Adato will not let you go, it is useless to even think of it. You will die here,’ Ahmes said bluntly. Will raised an eyebrow at the difference in her tone.

‘Oh ho ho,’ Will said, ‘That’s quite a statement young lady! I don’t believe that for one moment. Will Charity has had more near misses than hot meals and I guarantee this will be more successful than Sunday Lunch at The Mule and Horses Inn.’

‘But your men don’t pay the ransom you will die,’ Ahmes said a little desperately, ‘That is what happens.’

‘Ransom?’ he raised his eyebrows again, for me?’

Ahmes nodded.

‘For my safe release? Christ I’m probably buggered then. I’m forever in trouble, I mean there has been a good number of daring deeds of bravery to win me my rank and medals, but that does not mean I’m well liked amongst the men, I can be a little…. Well, reckless. Nobody wants a reckless commander.’

‘Well nobody has paid for you yet and Lord Adato grows impatient.’

Will puffed out a breath and sat staring across the little room. His eyes lit on the hieroglyphs opposite again. On the image of a small girl priestess at an altar, stars raining down upon her and blood at her throat. That frown again. The girl in the pictures had the same ceremonial dress which Ahmes wore.

‘Do you have a ransom?’ Will asked. ‘Or are you trapped here?’

‘No! I belong here. I am not in chains as you are, I cannot be a prisoner. I am the Gods’ representative on earth, they dwell within me. I was brought here when I was small, and I will stay here until… until the next Priestess comes.’

‘Dwell within you…’ Will frowned and looked past Ahmes again at the markings on the wall of the chamber, two great beings, the celestial bodies of the moon and sun high in the heavens and there, falling from the grasp of both, a plummeting star. His eyes tracked the hieroglyphics again and again trying to find an answer, as though pieces were missing or extraneous to the puzzle, and then the moment passed, and the conundrum remained unsolved.

On the seventh day Will slipped his rope bindings after hours of worrying at them and finally stretched out his arms. Ahmes almost screamed when she came back to the chamber to find him trying to haul himself to his feet, but he seemed too weakened and too sore.

‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he said, one hand on the pillar to keep him upright, ‘Ill be right as rain any moment, just a little dizzy. He made his way to the offering plate with the old fruit and picked some mould off a fig. ‘Had worse,’ he mused.

A dozen thoughts rushed through Ahmes’ young head, the most prominent being if Adato found Will like this she would be executed for aiding him, but just below her sensation of terror there was that overwhelming compulsion to help, that push within, the echo of a voice that was not entirely hers.

‘Stay there!’ she said.

Will looked up, ‘Would very much appreciate being able to move about if you don’t mind, could do with a bath and good meal, no particular order.’

‘Just… stay, I will… I’ll bring food, better food,’

‘I don’t want you getting into trouble,’ Will started but she had already found herself running as silently as possible down the long passageways between chambers until she reached the altar and the latest offerings. It was late and none of Adato’s men lingered, probably gone to the village nearby where there were womenfolk to bother, so she gathered what she could from the altar without making it obvious there had been a theft and made her way just as quickly and quietly back to the chamber through dark and narrow corridors, not even tall enough for a grown man.

Will was examining her private altar by her bed, when she returned, one hand cradling a figure. Ahmes immediately threw down the food.

‘Don’t touch those!’ she cried, dumping the basket of fruits and meat and barging between Will and the little figures. She snatched the one in his hand from him and checked frantically for damage.

‘I’m sorry, I’m very sorry, please, calm down, it’s all right I won’t touch them. See, I won’t I promise. No damage done. Who are they?’

‘You’re stupid, you’re stupid! Stupid man! You shouldn’t touch them!’

‘Ahmes, please, I’m deeply sorry, truly. Are they people you know?’

‘My parents.’ She turned her back to him as she cradled them against her chest but it was less as a means of snubbing him and more to hide her tears in shame. Adato did not like it when she cried and he would strike her.

‘Ah,’ Will said. ‘I see, of course. And did you make them?’ he said gesturing to the simple little forms as thought they were the greatest examples of art he had ever seen..

‘Yes,’ she said sharply.

‘Well they are quite beautiful. So clever of you to make them. I suspect they look just like them, don’t they?’

She sniffed and wiped her nose on the back of one hand before with one foot she shoved the food in his direction before carefully rearranging her little family. She muttered a brief prayer under her breath and sat down amongst the straw.

‘I thought perhaps they were dolls when I saw them first,’ Will said, joining her but keeping a respectful distance. Ahmes shook her head as though he was a fool. He smirked as she rolled her eyes wearily.

Charity bit into a rather gritty loaf. ‘Do you have any dolls? Every little girl must have a doll. I have younger sisters, I’m fairly sure they had some,’ he paused as though trying to remember, the frown knitting his brow, ‘Has it really been so long?’ he pondered, ‘That I cannot recall. Well, they must have, I’m sure. I had a toy sword and shield, painted merry colours. I used to like to pretend I was one of King Arthur’s knights. Fighting dragons mainly. Well fighting my father’s sheepdog. Not much actual fighting went on. He made a better companion than a dragon did Percival.’

‘I don’t have dolls,’ Ahmes said interrupting his remembrances. ‘Priestesses don’t have _dolls._ All worldly possessions must be sacrificed to be in this temple. I need no earthly possessions and no earthly family.’ It sounded like a lie even to her own conditioned ears. She needed all of those things.

‘Well, that sounds rather sad to me,’ Will said, peeling a mystery fruit, ‘To sacrifice everything you love. I know a little about how that might feel, though I tell you now I’m trying to make the best of it. I decided a while ago to get the most from life. Adventures in the army for a start, though I’m rather regretting some of that. Not quite enough to earn myself a white feather and leave but I know that when I return home I’ll quit, find another occupation. There’s a lady, a very special lady named Catherine and for her….’ Charity paused and smiled softly, ‘Well when I return I hope we can have our own little family and that I may be fortunate enough to care for them. Live happily a while before…’ and this time he stopped, the muscles of his smile sagging.

‘Before what?’

‘Before my own destiny comes calling, little Ahmes,’ he said and pulled an amulet from his torn shirt, a stylised moon in red crystal, ‘Run as fast as you can, you can only avoid it so long. One day the Red Sun will waken and call me to protect Her. This jewel is its counterpart, the Moon…’ he held it up so Ahmes could see properly and it spun on its silver chain, the torchlight like flames within the crystal. Her eyes told him she was enchanted and in the gloom they almost seemed as bright as candles. At last he folded the Red Moon into his palm again and then his eyes landed on the Star emblem at Ahme’s neck.

‘And is that your amulet, your destiny?’ he asked her.

‘Each priestess must wear the Star,’ she nodded.

‘What does it do, exactly?’ Will asked. Ahmes shrugged. The power she knew was inside her not in a jewel. Will pursed his cracked lips into a pout, flicked his eyes up to the carved scenes above them. ‘I keep getting this feeling…’ he started, ‘Probably just my mind playing tricks….’

Ahmes scratched a picture into the sandy floor while he debated. A simple hut, some animals, the land the sky. The Sun.

‘That’s very pretty,’ he said after a spell watching, and she looked up surprised. ‘It is!’ he assured. ‘Bravo.’ Ahmes looked at him awkwardly, uncertain what to do with such a compliment.

‘Why don’t I make you a toy, for all the help you’ve given me? I could make you a doll,’ Will said turning the subject, ‘or a spinning top! Would you like that?’

Ahmes shrugged. ‘I’ve never had a toy. Not since….’

‘Well we can’t have _that_ ,’ Will said steering her away from sad memories, ‘A little girl with no toys! No, no,’ and he began to gather a few materials from around about the chamber. He moved slowly with an obvious shake in his limbs, but he carried on none the less, focused on his task.

‘Are you going to leave?’ Ahmes said watching him and suddenly very worried that he might.

‘Not straight away. I will need the expert help of one very clever little girl. I’ve not been terribly well and if it comes to a fight with one of my captors I’ll last no more than five minutes. I need some recovery time.’ He turned with a scrap of wood in one hand.

‘I can bring you food,’ Ahmes said, ‘But I will need to be careful, if they catch me…’

‘I understand,’ Will said. ‘Well once I’m a bit stronger I’ll have a proper look about one night. Pyramids always have a small escape passage. In the old days they would need them so the workers could get out else they were boxed in by the design and stuck in the tomb. They’re often full of rubble but you know this place so well, you can help me; I wonder if there might be another hidden passage we might take, …’

‘You,’ Ahmes said. ‘You might take,’

‘You don’t want to try for escape?’ Will said casually, ‘I mean to go myself, so you could come with me?’

‘That would be the greatest Sin and anger the Gods.’

_Go with him. You anger me to deny him. Do as I say!_

Ahmes blinked suddenly. No, no not the voice again.

‘You’re afraid to go?’ Will asked misinterpreting her sudden silence. ‘I’d keep you as safe as possible, as though you were my own. I don’t usually pay much heed to children but, well, I’m rather fond of you already,’ and he smiled softly, the torchlight in his eyes seeming almost to light them from within. So familiar. She knew him, she knew him. Just as he sought the answers in the paintings on the wall, she felt a connection to him.

‘I dedicate my life to the temple. When my times comes, I will be a willing sacrifice to the Gods,’ Ahmes said in a chilling and oft rehearsed tone. Will sighed and slowly unravelled the gold braiding at the left of his chest until a long string twisted about his fingers ready to make the toy for Ahmes. The little girl remained very still, the wave of angry power within her threatening to burst forth.

_That is not my bidding, but man’s. This temple feeds their greed and not my power! Listen to my voice! I am as trapped and you! Listen!_

‘I don’t believe you Ahmes,’ Will said levelly, ‘it’s strange but I feel I can read you as well as an old, old friend, and I believe those are the words you tell your captors. Because you are as captive as I and if I am reading the walls correctly, your fate is not a pleasant one or one you would willingly consent to. I would free you.’ The last of the decorative braid came away and the left side of his jacket lay exposed and crimson, the silver amulet resting on the material.

‘Something I’ve learned on my travels,’ Will said eying the bruises on her arms and the old scars on her skin, ‘When it comes to sacrifices of this sort they are never willing, they merely have no choice. You have a choice.’ he said. ‘To come with me, or to stay and die. Come with me. We’ll make a plan and preparation, for our escape. Just a few days time, and we can be gone from here, we can go to the village, or beyond, find my battalion and from there, well the possibilities are endless. What if we could find your mother and father? What do you think? Wouldn’t’ that be wonderful?’

Ahmes hesitated and glanced at opening, where down the darkened corridors within the tomb, Adato was probably snoozing with a quart of wine within him ready to wake tomorrow, angry that there was no ransom. She would be beaten, his captive audience for his frustrations and Will might be killed. For a girl whose purpose in life was to keep the faith at the Altar of the voice within her, she had no faith in it at all, only fear.

There was no escape, there was no future, but the one prewritten in her own blood. The promise Will was making was beautiful, tempting and beautiful, but he was just a man and she harboured a fickle and often cruel God who might one moment tell her to go before changing its mind and ending her journey forever. It could all be a trick and she knew not who to believe. She shook her head sadly and retreated to her bedspace again, held the figures of her parents in her palms. The fragile hope Will had spent his effort on igniting, was fading with the weight of her reality.

‘There are no choices, for people like us,’ the little girl said in a deadened whisper and Will looked at her curiously. She sat perfectly still as her eyes lost focus and she appeared a picture of exhaustion and defeat. Will moved towards her, crouched at her side and still she did not respond. Slowly he sat before her crossed legged and placed his hands over hers, tightened his grip about her fingers and the little figures of her parents kept safe within.

‘Like us?’ he asked, the amulet about his neck beginning to glow in the shadows of the chamber. Slowly the light seemed to find its way from his arms to his fingertips; crossed to Ahmes, where it briefly lit the figures of her family. It moved up her arms to settle at the heavy ringed necklace at her throat, finally infusing the symbol of the star so that it sparkled. She was as beautiful as any God at that moment and Charity watched her in awe.

Finally the girl raised her head and looked directly at Will, her lips unmoving and her eyes clear as starlight.

 _People like us? We are not people,_ a voice said _, we are_ _the choice, and the choice has been made. We are Chosen._

Will quickly snatched back his hand as though stung, the glow about his own body fading but the light surrounding Ahmes as bright as before, as though she had taken his energies and made them her own, or rather whatever possessed her had taken from him. He rubbed his hand fruitlessly as though injured, as Ahmes’ mouth widened into an unnatural grin, dispelling the moment of divine beauty Will had witnessed.

 _Tomorrow,_ the voice said, _under cover of darkness you will take the child and free yourselves and together we will seek the Sun._

‘What are you?’ Will said shaking. ‘What are you to make demands of us? The ancient God of this temple? Or a cruel imposter?’

 _The Star_ , it said.

‘I don’t understand,’

_There is no time to waste on understanding, I have wasted too many years trapped within the bodies of dying children, I wish to be free, I wish to return to the heavens. You will free me. You, the Sun and Star. Our quest begins tomorrow…_

‘There is no way to be ready by tomorrow,’ Will said, ‘While in theory I have no issue with escaping this tomb, I’m not sure what your quest entails. Would rather do a bit of research at the very least. I need a few days to…’

 _Tomorrow._ The Star’s tone became angry.

‘Now look here! I must object to celestial beings ordering me about, I have enough of that scheduled for my future without you freeloading. I am not yours to order, old chap and if you insist rudely on…’

_Enough!_

There was a vicious crack of lighting which hit and found its mark about Will’s heart and sent him flying until he smacked hard against the wall just beneath the artwork depicting the Star’s fall to earth. He slid down the wall. Ahmes shrieked and stood quickly, trying to move to him before the same tendril of light wrapped itself tight and smoking about her middle and hauled her back, arms flailing, a little doll, played with until broken. The little girl danced limply in the Star's embrace until it poised her like a manniquin and came to a halt with its fun, making Ahmes kneel in the bedspace, eyes aglow.

 _Tomorrow,_ the Star said sweetly, _we will begin our journey to find our mother._


	33. Chapter 33

Abyssinia 1868

Will spent the rest of the night plotting and eating in equal measure, searching the chamber of their captivity for things that might be useful, and sending Ahmes out to retrieve what she could from the Great Gallery and Altar Room while the men slept. She picked her way through their bodies scavenging for supplies, knowing that if they woke they would mostly likely shout in her direction or make some demand but that she would be a great deal safer on discovery than Will would be. She could bear any brief punishment she might suffer and in the small hours any confrontation might well end only with a muttered curse and a snore rather than real physical danger. She belonged in the temple and Charity did not, so she was willing to take the risk and barred him from following. Though he protested he saw sense, but if she was not back shortly he would follow, agreement or not. Ahmes did come back. Laden with oil for lamps, a small goatskin full of water, tiny knives as makeshift weapons, and some food. She placed them all in a hessian bag which smelt of citrus offerings and returned promptly to Will, excitement daring to rise in her chest.

All was set and her task now was wait out the rest of the night and the day that followed before departure. Will, eyes bright with adrenaline, encouraged her to bed and dropped his red jacket over her tiny body. Ahmes lay curled on her side in the cool of the chamber wanting very hard to believe that escape might be possible, that this could be her last sleep in the pyramid. She watched as Will sat under torchlight, a piece of wood in one hand and a knife in the other. She would have to retie his bindings before sunrise so that Adato and his henchmen might not suspect him, but for now, for the first time in a long time Ahmes followed the careful movements of Will’s hands, the slow shaping of the object in his fingers, the concentration and sense of peace upon his face, and she felt safe.

‘Ahmes?’ the voice cut through her dream, the one she had so often, the one that was not even her own. The image of a man and a woman amongst the green of fresh grown grass, the trickle of a stream nearby. They were not people such as those from her village, not people like her parents, but people from another time perhaps, richer and more prosperous, with a different dress and style, a different language. They had a huge house of stone surrounded by a garden whose flowers she could not recognise, trees that will tall and thick and farmlands beyond filled with animals. The woman cradled a child, the man kept his arm about the woman, but that was all she could see, their faces remained hidden.

Ahmes had long since stopped trying to see their features properly or work out where they were, all that mattered was the feeling the dream gave her amidst the stark abuse of her own life. A feeling of familiarity and belonging, the sense perhaps that one day she might know these people’s names, might hear their lilting voices speak her own. The people in her dream made her happy and she clung to the feeling as the dream slipped from her and darkness lifted.

‘Ahmes,’ Will was saying, ‘Up you get sleepyhead, I’d leave you longer but one of those chaps might make an early call upon us if he notices anything untoward, so I need you to string me up as it were, tie me down and all that, there’s a good girl.’

She rubbed her eyes and blinked up at him and found his face to be kind and a good deal cleaner than before. Most of his cuts were healing now and she found herself praying that the men would not visit today to do him more damage. Ahmes pushed herself up ready to tie the ropes when something golden flashed in front of her face.

‘Just a moment!’ Charity said. ‘I’ve made a little something for you, I couldn’t sleep a wink last night, and I did make you a promise, so here’s the result. Obviously it’s a bit rough round the edges and I couldn’t quite decide on a doll or a top. So you have both. Turns out lady’s dresses have such a ridiculous old shape back home that they have the perfect centre of gravity for a Whip and Top, not that I go about studying ladies’ dresses.’ He laughed self-consciously and brought the toy out to sit in his palm while she watched.

It did look like a doll at first glance, the curiosity carved from soft pale wood looked not unlike a woman in a dress whose skirts were voluptuous to the point of complete impracticality, but which sloped down heartshaped to the point at the base of the toy where her feet might have been. At the top end, the shape of a pinched in waist, bodice and a head, and around the middle at the narrowest point of the lady’s corset was a long string of golden braid wrapped over and over.

Ahmes looked at Will confused. ‘Why is the woman tied in gold?’ she asked. ‘Has she done wrong? Is she to be sacrificed?’

Will’s smile fell, horrified, ‘Sacrificed, why no! That is her dress, trimmed with finery, she is a dancer not a slave!’

‘A dancer?’ Ahmes looked at the creation. ‘I cannot see her feet.’

‘They are beneath her pretty dress,’ Will said patiently. Ahmes looked unconvinced.

‘Make her dance then,’ she said.

‘Ah, well! Here you go, I’ll show you,’ Will said taking the end of the golden braid and threading it through the fingers of his left hand as he cradled the top. Gently he placed it on the ground next to Ahmes’ bed and tugged, the braid flying free, the gold shining in the air, the torches about them picking out uneven threads of sparkle, and then at last the little Lady spun completely free of her bindings. She twirled a fast and then a more sedate circle before them, navigating past straw and sand with a low hum, spinning again and again losing speed and circling wider and then near the end of her performance, without warning, the top detoured, wound its way unsteadily towards Will and toppled onto its side, spinning a tiny circle on the horizontal with its point as an axis before halting in the dust.

‘Oh! Oh!’ Ahmes clapped her hands and scooted quickly to a kneeling position, clamouring for more, until Will had to shush her just a little with a reluctance which was all too obvious in the dimples which formed in his cheeks.

He rewrapped the gold braiding so that Ahmes might have a shot herself. ‘Do you want to play a while until sunrise?’ he asked, and she nodded enthusiastically, her eyes wet. ‘Well then, perfect. That should keep you occupied until later, well after your duties of course. Best keep it hidden just in case, but don’t forget to bring it with you when we go tonight, that’s a Charity Original Creation, worth an absolute fortune I daresay.’ He chuckled and handed her the top.

‘I would never sell her!’ Ahmes said quickly.

‘She’s yours to do whatever you like with,’ Will smiled in reassurance, taking his position at the pillar. ‘She is just a toy however, no need to worry about what she represents she isn’t like your figures on your altar or others in the tombs. I realise she is perhaps a little like a shabti, but I promise she has no other purpose that to be your companion and confident, there is no bad luck involved.’

‘I will look after her,’ Ahmes said. ‘She will stay with me always to be cared for,’ the binding pulled loosely on his wrists behind him and Will heard Ahmes make her pledge to the toy as she worked to tie him. ‘She will come with me tonight and when we return to my village I will show her the river and the flowers and the people and the sun will shine upon her until she shines, with the lights of the heavens, the sun, the star, the moon.’

Charity’s smile found a different tone at that.

‘When we get to your village?’ he said.

Ahmes finished her task and sat back amongst the sand and straw across from Will.

‘Yes,’ she said matter of factly, setting up the toy again. There was such faith in the word. Yes. Yes, we will find my family, yes, I will return home, yes, now I believe you, now I believe _in_ you. Captain Charity watched her play with the dancing top over and over in the sliver of the day between darkness and dawn. When for a while they were both safe enough to stop and think and remember; when there was as much time to look to the future as there was the past. It hurt to watch, the weight of the responsibility heavy on his chest, but he had done what he set out to do. He had won her trust as much for her as him; and there would be no worse crime in all the world than if he let her down.

Will’s cheeks were damp but he found that the hum of the top nearby did much to relax him despite his torturous position, his eyes drooping with the rhythm of the little golden lady dancing by his feet, looping between him and Ahmes on her journey, her braid shining behind her. In the gloom of the crypt, Charity could feel Ahmes begin to hope in earnest, and the string of glittering stars that he saw at the corner of his vision, were fragments of her soul, set free.

The ringleader Adato and his men chose not to pay a call to Will that day, and it was beginning to make him uncomfortable. If they did not make an appearance in daylight hours it often meant they wandered down the corridors late of an evening while drunk on Abyssinian beer to try some informal torture just to pass the time. Normally it mattered not what time of day Charity received his blows but today, ideally, he wanted to know exactly what they were up to before he started sneaking about the pyramid himself. He was also well aware of the demands of one slightly unstable ancient deity who had, unmoving, stipulated that today would be the day and who could be felt in the atmosphere of the chamber even before they set off, ready to shove them out of the door whether Adato’s team was there or not.

For now The Star was content to make itself known only by a small glowing light or the sparkle deep in Ahmes’ eyes but Charity was acutely aware that it was not in the least bit reluctant to cause Ahmes pain should she not do exactly as she was bidden. So it was that, despite the high chance than their captors might pay a visit, Will and Ahmes were studying a makeshift map in the floor of their original chamber late that night, scratched with a stick by the little girl who was so familiar with the dark passages with or without torches.

From what Will could make out from a child’s diagram with no sense of proportion, there were a number of passages and a number of chambers of varying sizes. Some of them had sealed doors, making their presence known in offshoot corridors which ended with a heavy limestone dead end and an immovable door. Ahmes was too weak to open those herself but said there were many hieroglyphics which indicated a room beyond.

There was of course the grand gallery which contained the altar and its passageway to the front of the pyramid where local people brought the offerings. It was the most straightforward exit but Ahmes explained the men slept in the chamber or on pleasant nights in the gardens around the pyramid, overgrown but abundant with oranges and lemons, persimmon and fig. Its fertility was maintained she said by the thing within her, which ahd once sustained o much more for miles on end. The men liked nothing better than to gorge themselves with drink and fruits and admire the stars and could often be found by a fire in the courtyard beyond. With Will still weak and their numbers anywhere between six and ten, to escape by that passage would be suicide.

There were two tombs that she knew of to the rear of the gallery, for a long dead king and his wife who when the Star had first made itself know to the people of the Nile, had built the spectacular pyramid and temple and who once dead where buried there too. The two tombs were not large, the emphasis of the building needing to remain with the Star, and they were absolute dead ends. Ahmes talked Will through as much of the king’s story as she knew and how he worshipped the capricious deity. The wilful star that fell to earth having escaped the sun and moon goods and all the gifts it brought, how important it was to her people thousands of years ago, but how its relationship with Abyssinia had altered. It grew bored of its own games, of the selfish demands of people and it slept. Disillusioned people moved to new Gods, but a core of worshippers remained, their offerings encouraged by extortion and threat by the ones who ran the Temple now. Adato could do very much as he wished, the Star rarely interfered in the tiresome amorality of men.

Will listened with his mind half on the map and half on the story. Moon and Sun Gods, priestesses and pretty jewels. Such elements were of course familiar in most ancient theology but there was something about the whole business that nagged at him. Will chewed the inside of his lip and examined the walls trying to satisfy the urge to fit the pieces together. He thought of the Red Sun and the little he knew of the old texts. Its root was Celtic and well established thousands of miles away. There were arcanas and priestess guardians in Celtic dead halls. There was a moon and a sun emblem but no star he knew about. His was not a dying legend but one which lived on and on, inescapable, swallowing the happiness of generations and saturated in magic. A lifetime away he knew the young current keeper of the Red Sun was cloistered in her father’s estate and would one day make her way in the world with Will as her shadow.

He stood looking at the hieroglyphic for moon for a moment but it was nothing like his amulet and then shook his head, the answer failing him again.

‘How many of us must be puppets of one theology or another,’ he said instead, ‘How many little girls act as vessels and sacrifices in the name of gods?’

Ahmes tugged his sleeve impatiently and he looked down at her crouching in the sand, her dress drab and tattered and yet the gold beads in her hair and the rings of her shining necklace unnaturally bright. In her eyes he could see both the child and the Star. She showed him another chamber, sealed, and some slim passages through the bulk of the pyramid each reaching to the outside but high up on the sides of the pyramid.

‘You can feel the air,’ she explained, ‘When you are close. And there are doors that slide open or shut.’

‘Air shafts!’ Will announced, ‘Of course, people say the builders needed them or they might suffocate. Are they big enough to climb?’

‘They are very small,’ Ahmes said, ‘Even for me. I could do it but, it would be frightening and… and you could not follow.’

‘There must be another way, don’t worry,’ Will said studying the drawing. If we are to avoid the passage at the front we must look to the back of the construction and deeper, there must be a chamber below the gallery which will lead out. And that’s probably a secret,’ he winked at her and looked up suddenly excited. ‘There must be a secret door! In the Altar Room, these passages were used for priests and so on to escape, they had to have the option there if the temple was raided.’

‘We cannot go to the altar rom, Adato is often there,’ Ahmes said.

For the first time that night she felt the push of the Star within, as though it was waking from a nap.

 _You will go. You have my aid._ The voice said returning to their environs.

Will looked incredulously at Ahmes where the light of the Star was clearly burning within the still and silent girl..

‘I must say you’ve had many a year to be helpful to this girl and have her escape and never bothered before, why now?’

 _She is no value alone. You are useful, to me, together._ And seemingly bored of the conversation having said its piece the light of the Star dimmed just enough for Ahmes to regain control. She did not enjoy the look on Will’s face or the edge to his voice when he bickered with the Star and was quick to show it was her again by tugging again on his sleeve.

‘I’ll take us to the Gallery, it’s all right,’ she said bravely, ‘I will take a torch but you cannot have one. If they are there, I can make an excuse to be there, but you must stay in shadow.’

He wanted to protest, hold off, make sure they were a safe as could be but time was passing and who knew how much of it he would need to find a way out I a vast and unfamiliar tomb. The threat of the Star growing tired of slow progress and somehow bringing things to an unwanted head also weighed heavily upon him. Charity shouldered their supplies and tested his legs, still wobbly from days of stress positions, torture and malnutrition.

He smiled is bright white smile, ‘All right,’ he said in his best tone of command, ‘Lead on Ahmes!’

Ahmes carried her simple torch to the entry where the height of the passage was so much less that Will had to stoop. It would grow less still as they moved, the ground sandy and uneven, the walls rough. Nothing lived. No beetles no spiders, there were not even webs. There was only the darkness and the eerie rush of ancient air moving through the passages. After what seemed a remarkable distance in a tomb, the corridor pitched upwards at an angle that made it hard to find footing. The pairs’ thighs burnt in protest though Ahmes was used to moving quickly up and down such obstacles. Up ahead there was another source of light, a colour of flame more like oil than wood and from multiple sources. Ahmes paused, holding Will back with a gesture and peaked out into the Gallery, After a moment she gestured for Will to follow.

The place was vast, high, and narrow with the elaborate Altar she worshipped at, at the end against the back wall of the Gallery where they had just emerged. It was placed like a massive table made of limestone slabs over a long channel of pale square stones, carved with significant patterns and designs, and stretching like a path, downhill and out towards the main entrance. Will looked back and found that the place they had emerged in was well disguised by the elaborate paintings all across the walls rich in golds and deep bright colours. These loomed high above them, giving a sense of richness but the ground remained sandy and bland. Ahmes began leading Will towards the collection of carved spirits, hollow containers and offering plates near the altar. There were a number of ornately made stools and tables, and it was clear from the debris that this was where Adato’s men liked to feast.

Thankfully the men were elsewhere or she might have bundled Will into the narrow passage back to their chamber. Instead Ahmes pointed out the main entrance to the gallery and tomb and the path that led outside. It was some hundred yards long in all and would open out directly into the courtyard where she knew the men were often camped.

Will placed his bag of goods by the Altar and looked about the rich decorations, the ancient faces of other gods, neither benign or malevolent, merely forgotten and with the loss of their memories, their power vanquished. He was absolutely certain he was the first man from the Empire to look upon such sights but the feeling did not make him proud, rather he worried for the day when Great Britain landed at this temple’s door, stripped it of its beauty and it sacred items, showing disrespect and greed rather than awe at such wonder.

‘Hurry!’ Ahmes reminded him. ‘We cannot use the entrance, you said there would be a path!’

‘There will be another way,’ Will said distantly, and began examining the walls near the Altar. There were pockets carved for oils and deep excoriations forming basic shapes. He could see no obvious triggers, buttons, levers, or floor plates in the area. The altar itself was littered with old offerings and pottery filled with strange, spiced mixtures, but again nothing obvious to be pulled upon or pressed for escape.

Will’s eyes dipped lower. Around the altar’s base were several solid figures perhaps two foot high apparently guarding the dais. Will bent to them one by one examining their heads and folded limbs in hope that he might find something but the guardians kept their silence and their position. ‘It has to be around here,’ he said, ‘Have you seen anything unusual here, you know it far better than I? Oh, hold up!’

Ahmes looked baffled when Will crawled under the suspended middle of the altar. ‘If you haven’t seen anything strange in all this time if must be somewhere a bit obscure. Ah-ha look at that! There’s a star shape here. Made in solid gold and silver. Well who is going to stick solid gold under a table nobody can see unless it’s important eh?’ Will poked one of the silver points with a finger and something clicked. His face was immediately in raptures.

‘Oh this is definitely a lock. Or a key. Or maybe a trap. What’s important is that it does something.’

‘How does it work?’ Ahmes said.

‘Well now, I’m not sure, ‘ Will said and then his eyes lighted on her neck ‘My God that’s it, your necklace! Do you remember you said you didn’t know what it did!?’

Ahmes grabbed it instinctively.

‘Think about it, this is a priestess escape passage we are looking for, no? A means for anyone at the altar to get out if the pyramid is razed. And you are a priestess, and that thing round your neck must be worn by all the priestesses as you said. It has no magic, but could it be that it’s a key? Pass it here,’ he said without warning.

‘No! It is sacred!’ Ahmes said. ‘Only the priestess must wear it!’

‘I wouldn’t worry it’s not my style, I’m already sorted for mysterious amulets as you know,’ Will said. ‘But that one, I really think it’s a way out, it will be our salvation, also I’ll give it back afterwards.’

‘What if it gets stuck?’

‘If you don’t hand it over it will be us that are stuck,’ Will said not unkindly. ‘Please, Ahmes. You’ve trusted me this far.’

She shuffled forward and knelt with him under the altar, the star on the ground between them. Will helped her to undo the multi ringed necklace, taken aback by just how heavy the gold was for a little girl to bear at her ages day and night. He examined it and then with a deft click the star emblem popped from the rings. Ahmes gasped to see it free from them and how the star fit snugly in Will’s palm. She saw him test the weight, examine the spindles of ‘light’ made of gold and silver. Finally he laid it over the star on the floor and noticed it had many more spindles of light, some twelve to the necklace’s six.

‘How do we know which ones to fit it into?’ Ahmes said.

‘Well that, that may take a little more thinking,’ Will confessed but just as he was about to try and divine the answer there was the distant sound of drunken laughter. Ahmes twisted back to look at the entrance to the Gallery.

‘It’s them!’ she squeaked.

‘Really? Christ! How many?’ Charity urged.

‘Five or six, hurry please,’

Will looked at the star, at the options for inserting the necklace. Six spindles of silver or six gold but it must be one or the other. One spoke was already depressed and well, he had started with silver he may as well continue. The noise of their captors increasing, Will smacked the star’s silver spindles into place and at its centre a light appeared. There was a grumble of sliding stone somewhere far beneath them.

‘One probably leads to salvation, one a booby trap,’ Will said quietly, ‘These things always do, they can never just bloody open, they’ve always got to offer you an option, and it’s always unpleasant.’

Ahmes looked worried. Will glanced at her.

‘It’ll be fine,’ he said, ‘I promise, you’ve got me, I won’t let anything hurt you now.’

Ahmes nodded uncertainly and began shifting back as the star spun once and clicked from silver to gold. The whole slab it was on dropped an inch in its setting.

‘Although if your inner voice knows what’s up ahead, now would be a great time to let me know,’ Will added as the floor beneath the altar began to open. Suddenly Ahmes looked up at Will and he saw the gold in her eyes.

 _What would be the fun in telling you what is ahead?_ the Star said.

The room rumbled and Adato’s men scampered up the stone tiled channel to appear in Will’s vision poised to attack. They were armed with pistols and machetes. Will licked his lips, feeling for the knife he had in his boot. One small knife, at least six angry armed men and an indifferent goodness.

‘Nevertheless, odds are a bit stacked here, so I’d appreciate any tips,’ Will challenged the deity. The temple rattled about them suddenly a silver-gold starlit halo spilled directly from the little girl calmly seated under the altar. Adato’s men took a step back. There was some consternation between a few of them and a very real look of fear.

 _Mankind._ The Star mused on. _You wish to live like Gods. Always wanting the control. Always wanting to know what’s coming next. The gift of prediction, the gift of power._

The Star emblem they knelt beside fell suddenly away; falling, spinning, brilliant and shining into the pitch dark of whatever lay below the altar.

 _You would tire of the Knowledge,_ the Star’s voice said as Will reached for Ahmes to keep her close. _You would willingly trade for the simplicity of ignorance. To know what lies ahead is only very, very…. Boring._

The floor gave way.


	34. Chapter 34

Abyssinia 1868

The altar’s tabletop crashed down over the hole left by the star and sealed Will and Ahmes into darkness, sliding fast at a steep angle through pitch black and long festering air filled with dust and decay. As he spun and skidded Will shouted and felt for Ahmes but located nothing but her screams, her little body flying, colliding with the rough hewn stone of the escape passage. He was picking up speed, the merciless ground and walls tearing his uniform and his skin. Will’s head collided with the roof and floor, his hands, knees, elbows were grazed, he could taste blood again as cuts reopened. And then as suddenly as their downward journey started it ended, and Will came careening to a halt across a wide sandy floor, his hip and back taking the force of the blow against a stone object behind him.

Darkness. A light sprinkling sound as particles of dust and grit and sand settled about them, disturbed for the first time in centuries. Will coughed painfully, ribs cracked, and scraped his boots as he tried to kneel, the painful wounds on his palms stinging as he leant upon them.

‘Ahmes?’ he squinted but his surroundings were as ink to him, deep inside the pyramid and far from natural light. ‘Ahmes? Ahmes are you all right?’

There was a sniffle to his left in line with where he thought they had emerged. Will began to move carefully towards it, using the wall as a guide. It was carved in places but appeared to form a rectangular room of no great dimensions or particular import, perhaps a place used for storage, or a temporary structure made for those working on the bulk of the pyramid thousands of years ago. He pushed a little further on, his breath coming in painful gasps, but not solely from his injuries.

Though it was hard to judge how far they had travelled Will guessed by the cloying quality of the air that they were in some kind of subterranean room, which meant their surroundings could be part of a common Egyptian ploy, a decoy for the rooms far above which contained riches and sacred tombs. Thieves would pass this way and conclude the place worthless, and as he had discovered, priestesses under threat would also come here through the sun-shaped key. Both things meant that a passageway from the room would lead straight to an exit. He just had to hope it was the right one and not one which would lead them to the front of the temple and their captors’ camp.

‘Ahmes,’ Will coughed, keen to escape the thick air and escape, ‘Are you in one piece? Speak to me, hmm? Come along,’ the false note of jollity felt particularly painful.

‘I’m… I’m all right,’ came a tiny voice. ‘I hurt my knees,’ it added sadly.

‘You took quite a tumble down that slide, but I can assure you, you are being very brave,’ Will said attempting to keep conversation going long enough to sooth her. ‘If I just had some light…’

He began digging in what remained of his pockets and uniform, but it had already received a good deal of damage even before this latest escapade, half his chest was quite bare since he lost all the buttons and one sleeve was slit from wrist to elbow. Still he found a handkerchief of all things which he tied about his face to try and breath cleaner air as he moved about disturbing dust, but that was not his goal. What he needed was fire and he had no matches and no flint to hand, just oil. In a quandary, Will arrived at where Ahmes was waiting, and they sat side by side in the gloom considering if he could map out the place in his head or feel his way to another exit. It was wishful thinking at best, and as Ahmes pointed hidden exits were just that, hidden, even more so when you could not actually see. He sighed. What option did he have, truly?

‘Stay there,’ Will said shortly, ‘You’ll be my reference point. Talk to me, keep me orientated, hmm?’

‘Yes,’ Ahmes said. ‘Be careful.’

Will stood cautiously and began to navigate the circumference of the room; every now and then knocking over a piece of pottery or a tiny statue and cursing if he heard something shatter. In general terms smashing things in pyramids, temples or tombs of any kind usually ended badly.

‘I don’t know this place,’ Ahmes admitted as he crashed about, ‘It is not like the other rooms. Everything there is dry and old. Nothing lives. Not even the air.’

‘I’m always rather relieved when I find a tomb that has nothing living within it,’ Will said focusing on following a carved balustrade.

‘Do you rob it of its gold?’ Ahmes said. ‘If you find a tomb with riches?’

‘What? No! It is a fool who takes from an ancient culture. There’s plenty of those fools about, mind,’ Will reached a support or a pillar and started carefully detouring round it. ‘No, no, I’m on the side of whoever made the thing in the first place. I’ve no wish to anger ancient gods or activate old curses. People take them all too lightly, you have to live with the consequences of one to realise that long dead beings are best left that way. Sleeping dogs and all that.’

‘Oh,’ Ahmes said, ‘Lord Adato wants to wake the….dog?’

‘Well that’s not very clever of him, ‘Will said, ‘But it is most people’s attitude. Greed. They cannot resist greed. It’s half the reason I don’t fit in with my battalion. They are much too keen to take anything they can from your country. Gold, silver, ancient artifacts, not to mention what they do to your actual people, forcing their ‘one true’ religion upon them for their ‘own good’ while at the same time acting in despicable un-Christian ways for their own pleasure. It really is grotesque, what our Empire stands for now, the number of lives lost, the hubris! Pride and arrogance, what a combination. But I won’t let any of that happen to you Ahmes, you are…’

He turned slowly and faced her, suddenly aware of a soft light coming from her direction. She was cross legged beneath the entry way from above, and her large eyes were opening against the dark; the Star shining within with just enough power to light the room. Will stood transfixed for a moment.

‘Well, hello there,’ he said with a soft and genuine smile, ‘That’s terribly kind of you and a terrific help to us all, thank you.’

 _I thought it may be useful,_ the Star said in an unreadable but flattened tone, _if all of us were able to see the same._

‘Yes, bravo,’ Will looking about the room with keen interest. There were fewer pictures with meaning to explore, but he could see a fair number of containers for offerings and multiple shabti figurines all casting life-sized shadows of dozens of enslaved men upon the walls. A large stone sarcophagus lay unopened against the far edge of the room, the heavy stone box being the thing Will guessed that he struck upon arriving from the Altar room above. There were four jars in the corner closest to it that appeared to have the heads of animals. Will stooped and examined one closer, his heartrate rising. Even in the limited light he looked suddenly paler.

‘This is a canopic,’ he said quietly. ‘Containing the organs of the dead.’ He looked up, ‘We are in a tomb, a previously unopened tomb and we’ve disturbed it. Christ almighty, not a clever move, not a clever move at all. Look!’ he pressed his fingers into a row of deeply scored hieroglyphics on the wall above the sarcophagus. ‘I can only read it in parts, and it represents a language even older than those found in other tombs, but I would guess this is a Book of the Dead.’ He peered closer, aware of Ahmes standing behind him. She swept her bright eyes over the inscriptions so that he might read.

‘There is no water here nor any air, no moon to guide the tide,’ Will read solemnly, ‘the heavens are now far from reach; sun is hidden from our eyes. Darkness is all, but come the light, the soul will rise again. Then hers will be the darkness when the last of light doth end.’

Will hesitated repeating, a line under his breath. ‘Come the light, the soul will rise again. Hers will be…. Hers will be the darkness….’

Silence descended for one long moment and Will closed his eyes. ‘Damn,’ he whispered.

There was a roar from behind him quickly followed by the smashing of stone on stone. Ahmes screamed and pressed back as hard as she could to the wall, the brilliant energy that she had been emitting into the darkness flying up towards the ceiling and dotting it with tiny stars to illuminate the tomb. There was laughter hovering in the air, an expression of joy from a spectator who had both the power to stop the show and no great desire to do so. Sensing things were about to escalate much too quickly for his liking, Will turned just as the mummified thing sprang from the now open sarcophagus and latched both dead arms about Will’s shoulders.

It was smaller than he might have expected, as far as he expected anything when it came to mummies, but hanging there about his neck and wrapping dead and sinewed legs about hips, it felt as light as a child, if strong enough to try and drag him down into the coffin. As it moved the elaborate funeral dressings it had born for thousands of years fell like meteors from the bindings it wore, flashing brightly and filling the gaps between the layers of its sarcophagi like jewelled rain.

In the pulsing light the Star provided it was possible to see a shining silver sarcophagus within the heavy outer construction. The lid had slid over and fallen as the thing crawled free. There were gems everywhere, carved symbols and gold plates. As Will wrestled it, the gold and silver death mask fell away leaving the creature’s face exposed, shrivelled and darkened by time, the eye sockets empty, but its teeth prominent. Elaborate braided hair hung in ragged clumps around its head, the gold beading similar to Ahmes’ own, the sight of which made her scream again more loudly. The thing snapped its head audibly towards her and leered, dried lips taught over its jaw.

Distracted for a moment Will managed to get purchase on the thing, its bones cracking horribly under his weight as he wrestled it to the centre of the floor. Writhing it tipped back its head and let forth a stream of black-flies in a scream as Will coughed and choked, panicking in the darkness the insects brought to his vision. The creature reached a bandaged hand to his throat and began to pull him to itself with the chain of his amulet as though it might kiss him, take from him, fill itself with something pure and good having breathed away the decay, but then it tipped him so that he was flat on his back in the tomb. Will was craning his neck to search for some kind of weapon as it bore down on him, teeth exposed. It opened it tongueless mouth wide and held his face in position with the talons which had formed at the ends of its fingertips. It breathed dead air and inclined its head to his neck as though it would drink from him.

‘Stop, make it stop!’ Ahmes appealed to the Star who still lingered in the room. ‘You need both of us, you said so!’

Will had a grip of one of its wrists and with his free hand he was tearing at its linen wraps, exposing more jewels and trinkets given to it for the afterlife. He knew that in theory that was where such a creature’s power lay but with so much treasure he had not time to decipher which piece of finery mattered and which did not. He pulled away another layer and found a priestesses necklace identical to Ahmes’ but the Star shaped key was missing, the original in the trapdoor far above them, an heirloom passed from priestess to priestess for her escape.

This thing was never meant to escape.

Still there must be something. He dug about the bindings once more as he fought the dead girl, a papery stale smell meeting the back of his throat and making him gag.

 _Warm,_ the Star said.

Will ripped another layer back best he could. The linen might be old but it was still strong and in places treated with resin for longevity. The thing began to lean its free hand across Will’s throat, the pressure on his Adam’s apple causing him to choke and splutter. It cocked its head at him, empty eyes watching with envy as life pulsed through him. Loosening then reapplying its grip so that it might watch some more, might savour the moment when it drank from him for its own restoration. Will looked into the gap behind its eye sockets, saw nothing.

 _Colder,_ said the Star.

Charity wrapped his fingers around the thing’s grip and tugged trying for air. He pulled free and in a swift movement turned the undead priestess upon the ridge of its prominent spine, pinning it with one knee just below its chest. It writhed under him, arms flailing with dangerously sharp nails. Will despertaely tore away more bindings at the chest and more jewellery came away, sparkling in the light. He ripped away a layer of skin that came away like cracked leather then gagged as though he may vomit. Beneath the priestess was a husk of dry sinew, her organs removed, her body stuffed with ancient powders and materials to absorb her decay. Will Charity began to dig under her wrists, his hands blackening with sticky long dead exudate.

 _Warmer,_ the Star commented.

Still battling with the corpse beneath him, Will turned on instinct to curse at the unhelpful deity and its worthless commentary, but as he did the priestess surged up its teeth gleaming and clasped again at his his shoulders, brought its mouth to his to kiss or bit or kill. Terrified Will let go, just a fraction.

And saw a glimpse of red.

‘Hot!’ He announced.

Will thrust his hand into the centre of the things chest as its wail made the very foundations of the tomb tremble. He pulled back, linen, skin and flesh falling from his fist, and a crimson crystal heavy in his palm. It was shaped as a scarab, the magical source of the priestess’s lifeforce after death.

‘Smash it!’ Ahmes shouted seeing what he had. ‘Smash it!’

Something made him look back at the undead priestess, as it retreated, as it sank down to its knees. It knelt at his feet, an obedient soul now its crystal had a master. It grimaced and twitched, its body wrecked, but it had no purpose now, after so long alone after so long waiting to rise again. The scarab had left an empty space within its ribcage, its withered heart taken from it long ago. It was just a puppet. Just another girl who had once been sacrificed. Will held his palm open to show the thing the crystal and sure enough the jewel glowed brightly as its head seemed to track its movements with something like hope, a pair of dead lips moving in a silent plea.

She had been human, once.

 _Free her,_ the Star said, _From me. She was the First, I am still within her. Let her go, break the spell._

Will dropped the crystal at his feet and stamped hard upon it sending shards of crimson quartz all about the tomb. There was a sigh and in a moment the priestess folded softly, thankfully in upon herself, and curled upon the floor by the crystal that had trapped her. It mixed with the sand and sparkled scarlet, the light fading gently from it, from her, at last.

There was a lever built into her coffin. Will searched for it respectfully, understanding that the dead girl, had been the first Priestess of the order to ever serve and that like Ahmes she had within her the connection to the Star even thousands of years later, a tiny sliver of the God, hidden in her. Enough to keep such a God tied to the world against her will no matter how many other young priestesses she might burned through. The Star, it seemed, was tidying its affairs before it made its own escape.

Will dug about under the layers of items which had been buried alongside the priestess for the afterlife and quite quickly found his target, watching as the two sides of the Book of the Dead on the far wall now slid open on a rumbling and ancient mechanism. Will stood before it.

‘I feel a draft, not much of one but a draft,’ he said.

‘It looks like one of the little tunnels,’ Ahmes said with concern, ‘What if you are too big for it?’

‘Well you shall go first then if you like, you’re much smaller and will be able to get out even if I need to lose a few pounds to pass through,’

Ahmes looked at him unhappily. ‘I don’t want to go first,’ she said, not unreasonably. Will patted her shoulder.

‘Quite right, too much like putting a child up a chimney, never did like that whole trade. Look, we will work something out,’ he said inspecting the opening, ‘All right, it’s slanting upwards, which is rather a relief as I didn’t fancy going further down, you start hitting water tables and all sorts and having to swim and its rather cold. No, we go up, we eventually hit the side of the pyramid and we go from there.’

‘It’s so dark,’ Ahmes said peering past his leg at the hole in the tomb wall. Will waited for the Star to make itself useful but it appeared to have lost interest again. He cursed it for behaving like a great celestial child who only appeared when it wanted something, and returned his attention to Ahmes.

‘Can’t be far! It was built for escape, it will be big enough, mark my words,’ he said in an upbeat tone and caught Ahmes eying his bleeding cut hands, his torn clothing and battered face. Perhaps he would be more convincing in the dark after all. He crouched by the opening. ‘Got everything?’ he checked.

Ahmes nodded slowly, checking for her spinning top lady in the little pack about her waist.

‘Then off we go!’ said Will, vanishing into the passage.

It was a long climb and the angle fairly steep. Not so terrible that either of them would skid backwards but a difficult incline to do in a stooped position over such a distance. Will fumbled his way forward checking each step for potential pitfalls or pressure plates. He had decided in the last few hours that he trusted the tomb very little indeed and that there were quite likely a number of boobytraps he had missed, but he could almost smell escape now and that drove him on. Soon there would be a literal light at the end of an escape tunnel and from there…

Will Charity had all sorts of plans. Finding his battalion and demanding to know why nobody came for him was one, but far higher on the list was what he wanted to do for Ahmes. He wanted to help her more than anything, and it was very, very strange.

He knew he was a Protector, he knew the Protected would be his responsibility should she ever leave her estate and that a lot of him was magically hard wired to look after people. A lot of him resented what it and done to his father and his family, but before the army he had spent many hours talking to the Protector’s mother, who in a great show of compassion had encouraged him to live his life and go on adventures and fall in love. So with that overt permission off he went ad did exactly that. He knew vaguely about the amulet about his neck and its counterpart, but he did not research too hard into the whole thing because frankly he was frightened what he would find. If he was honest for the most part he felt he had lived a rather selfish reckless life and run away full tilt from responsibility.

And now there was Ahmes.

Not his to protect. Not even vaguely. She was victim to another theology altogether. But over the last few days he had warmed to her a great deal, indeed was risking his life for her, as escape alone was a good deal simpler than that with a child. Was this what he was born for, to care and to protect? To see some little girl through to adulthood in safety, to sacrifice his all for someone placed into his hands. Did it matter how he came by them, by destiny or chance? Surely all that mattered was that they were his to help and that he did just that. He had been thinking from the wrong direction. It was not a case of him running from his destiny, it was a case of him becoming a part of someone else’s, willingly.

As he crawled the final yards to the exit from Ahmes’ prison he spotted the stars in a rich midnight sky, he saw the moon dipping behind a sliver of silver cloud, and took a deep clear breath of realisation. Destiny was different to Fate. Fate could drop whatever it liked into your lap and you simply had to bear it. But Destiny, Destiny you were born to and as much as you might try and resist it, it fitted you best.

Will stepped out onto the tiny platform high up the pyramid’s south side far from Lord Adato’s camp, and helped Ahmes through the gap. They stood and looked over the landscape, quiet in the night, but still showing signs of life to the east. A village, not far at all and certainly close enough to walk to overnight. A safe place for Ahmes, a starting point for Will. He looked down at Ahmes in the starlight and found her smiling. Grinning he took off the remains of his jacket and his hessian bag and laid them on the slanted stone by their platform, sat himself upon it like a sled in winter and beckon Ahmes to come and sit upon his lap. She giggled in disbelief as his plan became clear.

‘You mean to slide all that way down there?’ she said joyfully.

‘It’s not far!’ he promised, ‘And I think it will be a soft landing, plenty of shrubbery and grasses, I can see them from here.’ He squinted at the ground some fifty yards below them where there was little to see in the darkness. ‘We will be down before you know it and on our way to your village.’

Ahmes swung her dress about her excited and nervous in the same breath, but after a moment her trust in Will won out with ease. She sat on his lap and arranged her belongings in her own.

‘This is where the fun begins, the real adventure,’ Will said as he winked at her, ‘Tallyho!’ And he shoved them free.

The makeshift sledge sped forward and Ahmes’ squealed in delight as they picked up some speed over the sandy slopes of the pyramid. The wind it made rushed through her hair as Will held her tight and safe and warm. She could see the constellations all around, Osiris high above them both. It was so long since she had been outside, but the heavens never altered and it brought her such joy. There was a world that never changed out there for her to fit back into.

Half way down the pyramids long slope, the moon moved out from behind its cloud to illuminate their journey.

That was when the gunshots started.


	35. Chapter 35

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor character death, suicidal acts and scenes of violence

Abyssinia 1868

At the sound of the first rifle fire Will ducked instinctively, covering what he could of Ahmes with his body, learning hard to the left in an attempt to swerve the fire which lit from hidden flints in the undergrowth beneath them. The change in his position lent more weight to momentum and the make-shift sled sped up, the rough-hewn stones that made up their path tearing through the hessian and wool. Another round of fire and Will rolled them, tumbling, holding Ahmes safe, taking the blow of each landing with his back, the breath leaving him in short bursts of pain and the speed too great to catch it again.

He could hear them shouting in triumph, sense them coming closer to where the hostage and their priestess might land, and try as he might he could not think of the next step, only mistakes which stood out stark in hindsight. Military training had never prepared him for this. He was defenseless but for his fists and the tiny knives Ahmes had found for them, he had been days in captivity, and he had a child to keep safe. The faster he descended the more the truth struck home; they were outnumbered and out-armed and they would both be killed. Darkness rushed about him, swallowing them whole and Charity rolled and bounced, landing hard in a cluster of vegetation which snapped and cracked about him, damp under his broken skin and littered with thorns.

There was a beat of silence while their enemy located them and then voices began calling directions, near, they were so near, and Will realised that Ahmes had become separated from him in the last moments of their fall. He peered through the moonlight trying to find her, the voices coming closer.

‘Ahmes!’ he whispered, distress choking his words, ‘Ahmes! Are you there? Are you all right?’

There was a rustling and a tiny figure emerged just ahead of him near what looked like a body of water or a stream. The stars lit on its surface, the moon was mirrored as in glass, but it was the beading in her hair, the pale light in the girl’s eyes which stood out most. Charity felt himself gulp air in brief relief.

The Star was still within her, surely the Star could keep her safe? Please, please keep her safe, no matter what they might do to him.

‘The village,’ Will hissed glancing backwards over his shoulder at the shadows of men approaching. They were spreading out in a large semi-circle, soon to close in on him. ‘The village we saw, it isn’t far Ahmes, across the stream, run, run there now, please!’

But the little girl just stood there, the thing inside her detached, but her own fears strong enough to hold her paralysed. He saw her gaze flitting unsurely from him to the village to the men behind them. She turned and turned back, rigid and on the verge of tears.

‘I won’t go, I won’t leave you behind,’ she whispered.

‘I need to hold them off so you can run,’ Will said trying hard to control his alarm at the encroachment of his captors. Still Ahmes hovered.

‘You promised we would go together,’ she said. ‘You and me and the dancing lady, the three of us…’

‘Ahmes there’s no time, please,’ he pleased, ‘Go, for me, just go!’

Seeing her so torn Will tried to get to his feet, to usher her in the direction of safety, before he was ready to turn back and defend her path as long as possible. He stood, bent over and hurting, summoning within him every last scrap of his energies, suddenly certain he would not survive the night, but just as sure that none of it mattered as long as she escaped. ‘Ahmes, I will follow you’ he lied, ‘But go, now!’

The voices were distinct now, torchlight in the gloom, the leader closing in upon him, his dark but tattered robes billowing behind him, ancient jewels about his neck, taken from a King’s resting place, but it was not just jewellery he wore. Adato wore a mask, the shape of bones, like an animal’s skull, huge hollow eye sockets and a pointed beak. It was no ordinary Egyptian God but one that was more ancient and more terrifying. Will knew by a glance that Adato was no mere leader of a thieves gang, he was a necromancer in ceremonial garb, poised with a golden staff in one hand and nothing of his features visible but for the avaricious fire caught in his eyes. Will saw the head of the staff twist as he watched, half alive like the snake it represent, emerald green and dripping with poison.

‘There!’ Adato was calling, ‘He is there! Fallen in the ditches! Get him! Return him to the topmost chamber. I am tired of waiting, break his spirit and break it now, find a way to gather the ransom or we will kill him for sacrifice, raise his spirit for revenge. He has disturbed our ceremony and the Gods desire fresh blood.’

Two men in more modest half faced masks moved past their master, rifles slung over their shoulders, a torch between them. They also wore what looked to be ancient robes of ceremony, clearly marked out in the hieroglyphics of death and unnatural rebirth. What was it that they worshiped, here in the clear night air, under the moon and stars? Will found he had little appetite to discover and scrabbled back on the ground, trying to avoid their grasp, but he could find no purchase and no strength in his muscles. He glanced up to find a green mist flowing from Adato’s sceptre, the snake’s head breathing forth enough venom to keep him weak, but it was not enough for the men to do just that.

The first man to reach him pulled him up and punched him hard on the jaw, but Charity’s reflexes fired and the blow was returned with a second for interest upon the man’s momentum alone. He rounded on the second man and grabbed for the material of his robe, headbutting the uneven surface of his mask and feeling the sting of further bloodshed at his eyebrow. Will ignored it and tackled the stunned man as though he was participating in nothing more than afternoon rugby but hi energy was failing and he knew he could not sustain the onslaught for other men were standing by waiting for their turn, and in his chest his pulse was slowing. With another punch the next man hit the ground hard and Will dived best he could for him only to find himself being lifted bodily by the larger accomplice. Charity dangled in the air a second until a blow struck under his chin and he flew backwards. He saw the crowd laughing, the second helping the first up with a slap upon the back. He adjusted his half mask and was encouraged by the group to take another shot.

The blows rained down. Charity’s breath came raggedly and there was pain in his chest where his ribs shattered. He coughed and tasted metal, drew in a rattling breath in agonising shock. The man closest bent to grab an arm and Will reacted automatically with one elbow until the second man grabbed a rifle and punched Will across the gut with its length. Will doubled up, his lungs refusing now to fill at all, the pain searing. He knelt on all fours, blood dripping from his open gasping mouth as a boot landed in the crook between his body and his thigh. He toppled sideways, felt his cheekbone crack, felt someone stamp upon the back of one knee, kick him until he flopped like a doll, one arm outstretched towards Ahmes.

She looked straight at him and deep inside he saw the flicker of the Star, but no help came. Perhaps it could not help, perhaps it did not care, but it was there, watching, listening. Listening to the screaming, because with every blow upon Will’s body Ahmes screamed. Charity’s vision flickered, with pain in every inch of his body, with blood seeping from his wounds. He was fighting to stay conscious.

‘Run….’ He croaked before boot collided with his belly. ‘Run…’

With the flick of a wrist Adato ordered two more men to seize the young priestess. Moving past Will’s collapsed body with long strides they closed the gap quickly, ignoring the spluttered protests from the dying British Soldier and looking with disgust as the blood pooled from his mouth onto the sand, stained black in the moonlight.

The screams stopped and the girl looked for a moment as though she might flee, as though she might vanish at last into the dark land stretched out before her, but she stood as frozen as a pillar until they were almost upon her, her arms wrapped about her chest, cheeks wet with tears. The two men made a joke between them, lewd and foul and in the edges of his consciousness Will heard it and tried again to move, but all strength was gone and with it any chance of saving Ahmes. He closed his eyes and as his tears began to fall upon the sand, darkness took him.

The men grabbed an arm each and Ahmes struggled, just for the shortest moment, before she too accepted her future. She thought of what Will had told her about fate and destiny, faith and sacrifice. From all of it Ahmes knew one thing. Will Charity had risked his life for her, kept his promises, showed her kindness. He had made each night feel safe, chiselled her a toy of her own and made her smile. Will Charity was what was called a friend, and he was the only one she would ever have; she felt it in her heart, accepted it somewhere in her soul. The Star within her was looking to the days that stretched ahead with the gift of omnipotent foresight. Ahmes could feel a sense of future only, but she knew it to be brief and because of that she would not leave Will now, she would not run. She had nowhere to go upon the earth. Ahmes would stand with him at the end, because he was all she had and because he did not deserve to die alone.

So it was that when the last priestess of the temple was bundled back towards the North side of the pyramid they did not even have to bind her hands.

Will was in ropes and chains, suspended in the centre of the highest room of sacrifice in the apex of the pyramid. Ahmes knew this was where men were taken, if no ransom and no gold was extorted and while she had never witnessed it she knew that the Star had, years before, when its power was part of other Priestesses, but oh how the blood lust had grown in recent times. The Lord the men followed was of a very particular predilection, an appetite for pain, for death, for meddling in powers that were not of his concern. As his actions became more extreme and the body count higher, even the Star woke from its thousand years of fitful slumber to watch over the blood shed with mild curiosity.

Adato would disappoint the God however. He and his men considered the trite activities of the topmost chamber to be exciting, framing them in words such as ‘sacrifice’ and ‘ritual’ when actually all there were was torture. The Star had no interest in torture not in blood sacrifice, it never had and might have turned its gaze from men again had it not been for Will Charity. So strong, so persistent, so familiar. It took a little time for the Star’s hopes to be realised, for it to allow itself to see, and a little longer for it to dare to hope, but once it did, once the ancient Star made the connection, there was only one way the day could end.

One of Adato’s men prodded Will in the belly with a club, and the Star found itself to be uncharacteristically angry on another’s behalf. It rattled around in Ahmes’ mortal body wishing itself closer, wishing there to be no physical divide between itself and shards of its father’s celestial being deep with in the fragile flesh and blood which harboured it. If that flesh should die, what then, the star would miss its chance, it would never escape to the heavens. In all the endless rounds of possession, all the priestesses it had inhabited, it had never had this moment. The Star had to join with the Sun and then the Moon and then all of them, all of them would be mercifully free after all that time.

Ahmes sat in a squat by the entrance to the chamber and listened as the men struck Will hard across the belly, as the chains that bound him rattled and clattered when he spun. He would die, just like the others, she had seen the blood upon his face and body as he had been dragged into the chamber, the faint flickered of life behind closed eye lids. There was nothing she could do. Not to save Will, not to save herself. They would have no mercy, no mercy at all.

Ahmes listened to the laughter. She could feel the Star moving restlessly within. I was an unpleasant feeling like her skin did not fit her body, like another being wrapped its fingers around her brain and squeezed, squeezed out memories an fact, wrung out her emotion and sought clues and answers both.

‘I don’t know what you want, stop it,’ she whispered. ‘I have no solution.’ The thing inside her paused, its focus on a memory of a dream.

Ahmes quietly put one hand in the little pouch around her waist and found the spinning top lady Will had made her. She touched the gold about its waist.

‘I wish,’ she whispered.

Behind her the men began debating the ransom, how much they thought Charity was worth, how likely the Army would be to pay, why they might not have attended to the task so far. There was a heavy slithering sound and a cacophony of metal links landing on the sandy floor as Will’s limp body was cut down. Ahmes dared to look over her shoulder, at Will lying in the dirt, at his closed eyes and at the roll and flop of his body as he was kicked, examined. She saw them pick up his amulet and study it with hungry eyes, Zetu clumsy in his efforts to remove it, prying its clasp with a blade. It made her angry, so very angry, and deep inside, the Star was angry too.

 _He must be saved_ , the Star whispered. Ahmes screwed up her eyes and covered her ears. Not now, not the voice. But the voice would not leave.

 _He must be saved,_ it repeated, _And you can save him, with my help._

‘I can’t,’ Ahmes whispered, ‘I’m just a girl, there are so many of them, please, I can’t do it,’ and she gripped the little doll tight.

 _You must._ Ahmes shook her head again, ‘They will kill me.’

 _They will kill you anyway,_ came the curt reply and the Star waited. Ahmes focused hard on the spinning top doll.

‘I know they will,’ she said calmly.

 _Help me join him and I will save his life,_ the Star reasoned. _Your time is done, child, I burn through your body like fire, but he, he is strong, he can contain me long enough to find the Triumvirate._

‘And then?’ Ahmes asked, ‘Will you burn through him too?’

The Star was silent, the minute ticking by as Adato set his mind to removing Will’s fingers one by one.

_I can heal him now, that is what matters. I can save him from these men and help with his escape._

Ahmes bit the inside of her cheek She had carried the Star just three years but she would not wish it on her enemy let alone Will. It declared itself neutral but it brought so much distress. Indifference was crueller than malice.

 _Perhaps this might persuade you,_ said the Star sensing the turmoil within, _Look._

Ahmes looked up at the horrific scene inside the chamber. Will on his back upon the floor, his injuries evident and yet something so beautiful about the features on his face, the quality of his skin, as though he were a sculpture. It was clear though that he was dying. The men stood about in their soiled robes discussing their plans, but their voices were distant and their eyes unseeing because standing in one corner, watching over Will was a woman.

She had walked Ahmes’ dreams since she was small. The woman in the garden, who cradled a child, who walked beside a man, whose face Ahmes had never seen, until now.

There was an amulet about her neck, almost the same as Will’s.

‘Stop!’ she cried but nobody heard her but Ahmes.

‘She’s real,’ Ahmes said uncertainly and looked at Will. ‘As Will was, they were both in my dreams. But where’s the baby?’

_If you do not help him, there will be no child, no peace for any of the Triumvirate, no end to their story of peril, loss and pain. They will die, their families will die, darkness will spread across the lands wherein they dwelt. Man will always seek their power, and man will use dark magic to obtain it. That man, Adato he will try to seize it for his own. Ahmes, only you have the power and the opportunity, to change this future._

‘But how do I do it?’ Ahmes said. ‘I have no means of saving him.’

 _You know,_ said the Star, _You have always known. Inside, what your purpose is._

Ahmes looked between Will and the spectre of the woman from her dream. The voice of the Star whispering to her subconscious and to the lifetime of unhappiness that resided there. Eveen if Adato spared her life what future was there for a little girl in this tomb? More suffering, more pain. Would the men kill her when they were done with Will? Would they do worse? And Charity, had he not given everything to try and help her, should she not do the same for him?

 _‘_ Will it hurt?’ she asked the Star.

_Only for a moment and then I will leave you to take my place with him._

Ahmes nodded and pulled the tiny knife from the pouch at her waist. In her mind the Star waited.

‘I don’t want him to know,’ Ahmes said, ‘I don’t want him to carry the burden of my death. Promise me, promise me you will keep him safe, promise me he will heal and find happiness far away from here.’

There was a hesitation.

‘Promise me!’

 _Yes,_ the Star said, _He will heal. He will not know._

Ahmes looked up to the sound of whispering, the glow of amulets, the distress upon the dream woman’s face the knife pressed to Will’s fingers by Zetu’s hand. The moon was moving over head and the light was cool and bright. Everything was distant and opaque, viewed through a glass that deadened and muffled, until the haze broke all at once, the scene transforming from a dreamlike fog to the harsh reality of cold and light and sound.

‘Don’t you dare!’ Elsie's spectre from her vision cried across the years, but Zetu sliced down upon Will’s fingers just as a knife cut open the heart of a child.

The blade penetrated Ahme’s heart by her own determined hand, and in the beat between her life and her death, the Red Moon’s light burst across the room meeting the Star as it was freed and seeking its new domain. In her dying gaze she saw it race to Charity, through the Red Moon’s mist and heated frenzy. It had to join with him quickly, both to ensoul its being, and to keep him from immediate death. It hit and Will’s body jerked, a golden spear penetrating his chest, light wrapping around his face and body in smooth burning tendrils that sank through flesh.

Adato and the men screamed in pain and superstition and fled to the door of the chamber pushing and fighting one another. The pyramid trembled, sand and debris falling through the crimson light that still shone, falling on Will as, confused and amnesic, he pulled his aching body slowly to his feet and tried to orientate himself.

But the debris was also falling on the body of a young girl by the door, covering her quickly, hiding her from sight. Charity coughed and protecting his mouth from the dust, staggered towards the entrance, his escape now guaranteed by Gods and Destiny alike. He could hardly see, blindly feeling his way as the whole temple threatened to collapse, and had there been anyone other than himself there at that moment he would not be able to explain why he was here, or indeed where he was. He just knew he must survive, he must keep moving.

_Hurry Will, don’t look back, follow my voice and don’t look back._

If only he had looked back; had the strength in those initial moments to defy the voice that would come to plague him, come to drive him mad for two long years. If only he had seen, in the middle of the chaos, all that remained of the Priestess he had sworn to save, he might have laid her spirit more easily to rest, in the knowledge that her soul was truly free.

In the crumbling chamber Ahmes’ spinning top had come loose from her bag, and now the dancing lady was shining bright, whirling in and out of objects as all else about her fell. The gold from her brocade sparkled like stars in her wake and beneath the sounds of ruin she hummed a tune in a steady major key. Deep within the tomb the Lady twirled a final waltz around the still warm body of a child. A child whose time was over far too soon, whose sacrifice was made on slender promises of new found hope, and who had fought until the last for someone that she loved, but barely knew. 

The dance slowed to a finish, no sorrow in its fading tempo to be seen. Though fate had thrown sadness in her path, the child Priestess had still fulfilled her destiny, and when the Lady sank onto her side to sleep, Ahmes' soul was finally at peace.


	36. Chapter 36

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of self harm and thoughts of suicide.

Kingdom of Kongo, 1870

Time was largely meaningless for the Star. For celestial beings it moved differently, independently from heavens, from earth, from human constructs. Moments could take eternity; eternity could vanish in a blink. Two years in a human body ought to have passed in what equated to a lazy afternoon. Though the Star had set no deadline, it was certain things were overdue. It had requested a simple task be done and by now it should have been complete. A God’s command was not to be refused by any man, but that morning the God found itself waiting for Will Charity to rouse.

He was not sleeping, he merely sat, drenched and dirty, upon a make-shift bed of woven palm fronds. The thick of the forest was behind him and the meandering banks of the Congo river some way before. He had camped in a small clearing of grasses and built a shelter a few days ago. Currently he was staring at the rain; not planning on rousing any time soon, and The Star was beyond frustrated by the obstinance of one meagre human being. This was after all how Will spent most of his days, bearded and unkempt, his curly hair matted and sitting at his shoulders, the last of his uniform so damaged that it barely covered him and supplemented by scraps of clothes or furs found along the way. He was a scavenger, taking from untended crops or waste piles, doing no harm and claiming enough just to survive and no more.

When the Star had first leapt into Will’s body it was so sure of its plan that he threw away all caution, for the soldier had been so close to realisation in the chambers of the temple anyway. Proudly the Star shared its plot with Charity, who was after all, its hostage. After the escape from the tomb and their unholy union, the Star would tie its magic to its father, the Sun, the Red Sun, the one whose embers lived inside of Will and begin the journey to find the Moon, its Mother. Charity though shocked by the ancient link to his own Order, would accept the deal without argument, accept that both the Star and he were linked to the same scource of power and bend to the Star’s bidding without complaint. He would be all but invincible with the quantity of magic that he now bore and nothing would stop them. The three beings could reach the last remaining Temple high up in the Celtic lands to perform the ritual that would severe their link to earth and finally return home, likely killing their human vessels as they did.

Except it had not quite gone to plan. It should have been easy. Humans were easy to control. They always had been, a thousand years before. All that was needed was a promise of riches and they would worship anything.

But the Star was out of practice, and humans, at least that was to say this particular human, was not as easy to manipulate as it had hoped. Will had no desire for power, gold or riches, had no desire for anything but peace, was horrified by its revelations and would not simply bend to the Star’s will. He fought it at every turn, would not let it have its way, and just like the child, Ahmes, a knife pressed to her chest and a terrifying God whispering in her ear had come to bargain for Will’s remembrance of her and won, Will Charity would resist for the good of others. He would not give in, despite the damage to himself. William Charity whose mind had been tampered with by a deity, the landscape of it peppered with holes and veils beneath which Ahmes' true story lay, clung harder than ever to the parts of him that were uniquely his and not the Star’s. Bravery, honour, empathy. The Gods in whatever form would never take his kindness or his courage, even if one day they would take his life, and he was willing to die rather than watch the Order he was born to defend, crumble, rather than see people suffer because of it.

But months passed and it was harder to be valiant when all he had believed in and stood for was gone. And oh, how then he wished it might take his life. When it plagued him at its worst he longed for it. His mind was fraught and painful but so heavy and so slow. Will’s remembered his failed attempt to escape the pyramid, but he did not recall the details of his salvation, the way his bones healed and how his cuts vanished in moments, his awakening in the chamber moments before its destruction. He saw shadows of the temple as it crumbled to the ground, taking with it all the treasures Adato had claimed as the thieves gang was was forced to run for their life, out onto the courtyard as rubble crashed and smoked about them. But Will did not know of the death of Ahmes, by her own hand for his reprieve. The Star had kept its promise and never told him that. 

He knew she must be dead, because he remembered her being taken, remembered she was a sacrificial priestess and her purpose was to die. Knew the Star that held him now must have abandoned her to do so. He knew he had not saved her as he had promised and that sooner or later Adato would have ended her life out of ritual or out of anger, the conclusion the same, and the grief consumed Will as though she had been his own child. Then he threw a prayer to the heavens, for her, and at his weakest, for himself, to be free of that remembrance for good.

Charity’s imagination was more vivid than reality and he pictured such suffering and torture of Ahmes as had been inflicted upon himself in the days before his attempted escape. Under the African skies he slept only to dream of the possibilities, only to hear Ahmes screaming, an echo which persisted when he woke to the red sun of the morning climbing high upon the plains. 

Sometimes he would scream himself from the terror of visions that escaped him come the morning. He chipped his teeth with grinding them in fear. At others he would wake covered in sweat on the coldest desert nights, shivering, teeth chattering, the sand stretching around him as relentless as his torment, and in the day the mirage of a girl by pool, quick to vanish when he made his way towards her.

Charity was wracked with guilt and filled with pain, could not recall what he had done that one day to the next and saw no point in living. Out in the unending heat of the Sahara he failed to eat or drink for days, but the Star refused to let him die.

In his waking hours a voice was with him at every turn, instructing, pleading, observing, commenting, bargaining. It spoke of the Red Sun and his duty. It was always there, unyielding, and loud and sometimes he would appease it just for silence, just so that he might sleep. Sometimes it still whispered in his dreams. Sometimes it forced him to live within a waking nightmare, pressing on with its agenda, ordering him this way or that, its lack of knowledge understand or respect for human ways landing him in trouble, fights or even in those early days in prison.

The voice did not care, it only needed him to be alive and on the path that it dictated but he would not follow it. He turned South when it ordered North. He worked to pay his way when the Star would have him steal. He came to people’s aid when the Star preferred to kill. The thing inside him was not human and he felt it keenly. He would not lose his humanity on command, but he feared it might be taken, he feared that he would lose control one day.

Sometimes he would try and cut the magic from his skin, long deep scores along his arms and chest and belly but as soon as the knife left its mark he would watch the golden glow of healing close the cut. He would press against his neck until the blood ran fast but he could not keep up with the Star, with the thing inside that would not let him die, which seized the amulet about his neck and made it its own, the voice and the crystal, indefatigable and ancient, trapping him in the living world taking away choice.

So Charity had wandered, two long years, purposeless and lost, except to defy the Star, beholden to the voice but fighting with it hard; south and west he went across the unforgiving continent of Africa, through barren desert, thick rainforest, marsh and mountains. He came across settlements and towns, foreigners and warzones but always passed safely through no matter what danger came his way, the Star he fought was fighting back, to keep him safe, to somehow one day steer him to the place it needed him to be where he would die. How it hated him for never giving in, how angry it became, but oh, how it admired him too.

Will prodded the tiny fire he had made by his shelter, the flames struggling against the rain and incessant damp of saturated rainforest.

_I could make it burn fast and bright, it would be warmer._

Will’s head jerked slightly to one side, but he did not respond, focusing on the fire.

_This whole journey could be done in comfort if you would only follow my path._

‘I do not take orders from spirits,’ Will said.

_I am no spirit I am…_

‘A God. Yes. Well if you are or not you aren’t exhibiting much power. Except to drive me mad of course. Plenty of time on your hands to do that.’ He slapped a mosquito on his cheek. ‘And that’s mainly because of your skill in conversation.’

_Why do you keep resisting, years have passed, you waste my time! I should kill you, I should kill you and find my parents on my own!_

_‘_ And yet you don’t,’ Will added some sticks to the fire and the wet wood spat and billowed thick smoke. ‘Which tells me that you can’t. You need me, there’s the rub. Stalemate. Eternal bloody stalemate.’

_We need each other._

Will cackled, his laughter strained by emotion and thirst alike, ‘I need you like a bullet to the…’

There was a rush of air and then another. Two spears embedded in the ground to either side of him. Will looked up sharply to see a group of men approaching armed with more spears and one with a bow and arrow, drawn and aimed, more or less at Will’s chest.

‘Well it’s not a bullet,’ he said, ‘But it might do the trick,’ he said eyeing the bow with no fear whatsoever. He raised his hands slowly, heard the man at the centre of the group begin to chant something indistinctive under his breath. Slowly Will rose to his feet and the men started shouting in warning to one another.

_They are afraid, they will kill you, stop they will kill you, I command you…._

‘I thought you were all for me being dead,’ Will said, glancing upwards as he spoke. For some reason the Star always felt to him to be just over his forehead, like a halo. He was aware of the men following his eye suspiciously as he held conversation above him with thin air.

 _‘_ If they hit their mark they will be doing me a favour,’ Will said as he watched the men edge closer, spears levelled. ‘I have suffered this insanity long enough, I wish that you were gone, I wish I had never woken to find you part of me. I wish I could remember how I escaped, what I dream about, who I damn well am anymore and where I might belong. You are nothing but purgatory to me, I am not in one realm or the next and the sentence is unending; no good will ever come of this polluted union. Perhaps if I were dead…’ he was ranting, words gaining speed and bitterness, a flush coming to his face, mouth frothing, his eyes trained on nothing in particular and the group of men before him witnessing it all. One made a stabbing motion of warning with his spear.

‘Back, back!’ he shouted at the madman.

Will took a step forward and smiled crookedly, his beard thick and his long hair having the effect of obscuring much of his expression. There was a wave of frightened chatter, and Will jumped and clapped, landing heavily in a powerful spread foot stance with another burst of laughter.

_Stop this madness!_

‘You stop me,’ he growled, ‘You, or you, or you….’ He nodded at the men. ‘Someone stop me, someone make it stop!’

The bow snapped, arrow flying, straight into William Charity’s heart. The thing in his head was screaming so hard it could be heard upon the river bank, the voice high and agonised, in absolute terror that it might discorporate from its host and be lost forever to one of the nearby humans, spend another thousand years burning through bodies and promising riches until its chance came again. The men who had fired the shot fell to their knees in supplication, but Will, Will merely looked down at the arrow in his chest with interest, grasped it close to his skin with one hand, and with a twist, pulled.

Again, a chorus of terror from those bystanders witnessing the magic. Will flinched, the gaping wound dripping blood, and broke the shaft of the arrow into two, dropping it to the ground. The men were silent then, horrified and filled with alarm, but the tall older man at the centre of the group began to push his way through the prostrate murmuring bodies. As the light of Red Moon began to glow, as Will’s body began to heal slowly and the pain already began to ease, the village shaman took his emerald topped staff in hand and called for silence.

The men on the ground did as he commanded, but the Star wailed on.

_Run why don’t you run, why do you never do as you are ordered…_

‘Be silent, Old One,’ the Shaman said suddenly in the Star’s ancient language. The dirge of complaint ceased immediately and there was a sense of uncertainty, perhaps even deference from the being. The elderly man stood forward, magnificent robes sliding over the calf high vegetation of the river bank, his lined face painted white with chalk about the eyes and lips in the style of an animal’s skull.

‘I have walked many miles to find you,’ he said, ‘I have followed your cries for help.’

‘I don’t recall being that vocal,’ Will said dismissively.

‘Silence!’ The staff jabbed forward and a jet of green magic held Charity still. Inside him the Star shook and wrestled but could not escape its binding. ‘In your nightmares I can hear you, when you sleep. Long have you journeyed with no direction.’

‘I… I can’t remember, a lot of it, one day is the same as rhe next, I can't make sense of it, can't hold on to my thoughts’ Will confessed, ‘I know my name, but where I come from, who I am, how those things are linked to this evil inside me; sometimes I believe I’ve found the answer, then it’s gone. There is a voice… but I don’t like what it says… It tries to tell me what to do and sometimes those things are bad things, things I know are wrong, things that hurt people. It shows no respect for life except its own, and by association it tolerates mine. It would use me and so many others to fulfil its journey home and destroy the Order of the Red Sun. I don’t want to be a part of something like that, I wear the Red Moon for honour.’

‘You carry the Jok,’ The Shaman said, nodding. ‘The evil spirit that brings disease, madness or death. But with you it is is not a spirit but a God. It cares not for right or wrong. It would use you as a puppet to destroy whole worlds if it meant it could escape this one. You are right to resist it, right and strong.’

Will felt the Star screaming within him, sensing perhaps the Shaman’s power on the earth was far greater than its own.

‘You do not belong here,’ the Shaman said looking intently at Will, there was a gasp from the men upon the ground, as from within Charity a golden light began to show itself in the depth of his eyes and the Star’s voice could be heard.

_You cannot rid him of me, we are bound._

‘That is true,’ the Shaman said, pulling a string of objects from his belt, he rattled them gently for a moment until Will realised they were bones, ceremonial bones imbued with power. ‘I cannot send you back to the heavens where you belong, Jok, you are not like other spirits, a sacrifice will not save us and you must not be allowed to complete your journey.’

 _Let me complete it, let us go,_ the Star called desperately but the holy man ignored it.

The Shaman stepped up close to Will until the glow from the Red Moon amulet warmed his face.

 _‘_ Once there were many Great Temples of the Red Sun,’ the Shaman said to Will, ‘All over the earth and one by one they have fallen. There is but one left, far, far away from here, but there are many priestess in the Dead Halls, disciples and acolytes who will help you on your way. Who will bind this thing and its power to this world as it was once bound in antiquity. There is even one, extremely powerful High Priest, wandering this earth, protecting the Order much as you do now.' 

‘That would be you?’ Will said.

The Shaman grasped Will’s throat with one large hand almost lifting him from the ground and blocking any breath he would use to cry out or protest. Charity’s head tipped back, the Star’s fiery light burning in his eyes, in his open mouth. The Shaman leaned forward, bearing down on his victim with tremendous unnatural strength and opened his own lips until a thick green fog emerged twirling in the air between them. It was sucked into Will, down, down into the core of him where the Star waited, held by the power of the Staff, and it wrapped it with layer upon layer of magic to hold it still. It screamed long and hard and Will thought that his skull itself might burst from the sound but then it weakened, moment by moment becoming quieter, more indistinct, folded away in the centre of him to wait out its time before its destiny was decided. 

Gently the shaman lowered Will to the ground where he fell forward on his knees coughing and gasping for air. The Shaman ordered one of his men to furnish Will with water.

Charity looked up after a moment realising all was silent and he could not hear the Star.

‘Gone? It's gone. Thank you,’ he said faintly. The Shaman crouched by him.

‘What you carry is strong, it is still with you, but it is bound and has no power,’ he warned, ‘One day it could return by one means or another. Its magic resides in you still, it needs you alive, but man is not designed to hold such a powerful deity, I predict that yours will not be a normal life.’

Charity laughed at that. ‘Mine never has been a normal life. I wear the amulet.’

The Shaman’s face was serious. ‘That being will consume you slowly, but consume you all the same. It may heal your wounds but it will also drain your life-force. You are not likely to reach old age,’ he said.

‘I sensed that before this started,’ Will admitted. ‘I see glimpses of my childhood, the army, even the girl I love, Catherine; but all of it feels out of reach, untenable. I chased it, ran recklessly from my roots, discarded my heritage, but nothing I touched ever felt like it was mine, like it would ever last. The future is blank but for pencil etchings.’

‘Yes,’ the Shaman agreed, ‘Yours has been a painful existence. Too painful. There are some things from the past that cannot be undone that bring you sorrow. Paths you have taken, consequences they have led to. The nightmares. I will give you this mercy. I have silenced the voice for a time, given you what peace I can. I do not wish that thing to have power or any success in reaching its goal. It must be buried lest the Order of the Red Sun be destroyed and it is buried within you. So it must remain and it might be sufficient but that it has already shown you too much of its origins and its connection to the Sun and Moon, it would take them from us, it threatens to interfere with the daily rhythm of the Order and it must be stopped.' 

The Shamen let the bones at his belt clatter softly on this thigh, watched Will's shoulders droop and eyes unfocus. 'You will sleep and when you wake,' the elder continued, 'you will forget these two years past and all trace of the voice. You will only know again that you escaped and you make for home because your destiny lies with the Red Sun bearer. Your mind will be as it was before the voice came, clear to make your choices for the Order as the Arcana decrees. Do you understand?’

‘That is all I ask, to make my future my own, to wear the Red Moon and do my duty,' Will said in a distant tone.

‘It is all any man like you can ask for,’ confirmed the Shaman. 'Wake now, William Charity, wake now.'

Will blinked thoughtfully, touched the amulet at his neck. ‘Thank you for your counsel,' he said with a puzzled look, it seems some of my future isn’t sketched in pencil so much as carved in stone, and I must accept that.’

The old man touched the back of Will’s hand kindly, the skin there smooth and young for one who carried such a burden with him. ‘You are not a child now but a man. Do not waste time,’ the Shaman said gently, ‘There is somewhere else you need to be, and someone who will need you more and more in the months and years to come. Destiny is not merely who you are, but _why_ you are.’

The Shaman lifted his staff so that the gem at the top caught the sunlight and a figure of a girl on the cusp of womanhood emerged. She was sitting on a lawn making chains out of wildflowers, blonde hair tucked behind her ear.

‘Elsie,’ Will said. 'My Protected. I remember now.'


	37. Chapter 37

The image of Will, some fifteen years before, on a journey across a desert in a bid to find his way home, pieces missing from his memory, others burned out by the presence of a God, was a painful one. Elsie had never seen a person look so alone, the only company he kept was the cycle of the moon and the sun, one freezing the other burning, but neither ever bringing comfort. Elsie watched him scale another strength sapping sand dune, the rhythmic press of tanned skin, muscle and bone against sand and the jut of his ribcage on his bare and sunburned back. He plodded on and on, lived entirely off the land, the Star inside him silenced but ever present.

Charity had been attacked, chased off by locals with their stolen British army guns. Once he had been shot and crawled into the undergrowth to hide. Another time he had fallen down the unseen depth of a sinkhole, fracturing bones. Serpents had sunk their fangs into his flesh, releasing deadly poison and yet he lingered on. Elsie began at last to understand the multitude of scars he had once borne; scars she had healed with her touch. The Star had saved his life, but not because it cared one ounce for him, but because it needed him alive. Scarred and numbed, half blinded by venom, Will’s body had no choice. The Star had repaired the vessel just enough to carry on. It had a goal to reach and the only way it could do that was by using its human receptacle.

The Star, still dressed as Ahmes, watched as, depicted in its scrying pool, Will smuggled himself aboard a ship to cross the Mediterranean sea late in 1870.

‘It took months,’ it said with a hint of dissatisfaction, ‘but of course by then I had been silenced, I could not help him directly or we might have wasted less time. He did not need to endure all of this, but he always insisted on being secretive, on ‘protecting other people,’ from whatever he thought was at play within him, his magic, his madness. It was so frustrating. If I had not been forgotten he might have suffered less pain.’

‘Do not think I cannot see your hand at play,’ Elsie said as she sat barefoot by the pool, ‘You cared only for your own progress and you have spent the intervening years searching for a way to be heard again. You claim to care for him, but you simply could not let him die or you would lose your chance with the Sun within him. I am correct am I not?’

She saw the Star’s lips twist in confirmation. The expression ugly on the little girl’s face it wore.

‘It was practical, and I was limited,’ the Star agreed, ‘In what I could do to unite the Triumvirate.’

‘You are still limited,’ Elsie reminded her.

‘I am constrained,’ the Star admitted. ‘My magic is a shadow of its former strength now that I have been trapped and cursed into silence.’

‘I thank the Lord for that,’ Elsie said tightly. ‘After all that you have shown me, the pain you inflicted upon Ahmes, the anguish both she and Will had to suffer at your hands, you deserve to be so weakened. Will was better off the moment your voice was culled, even if his memories were blurred for those memories were torture. The horror of your voice within him, the darkness you whispered to Ahmes transferred instead to him, he would have been driven mad.’

‘He was alone and that can lead to madness too,’ the Star suggested as the images of Will continued before them, his face bloodied, the dirt upon his skin hiding bruises, the slow methodical plod of his footsteps, on and on.

‘Sometimes to be alone is a blessing,’ said Elsie without conviction, ‘If it means what plagues you is silenced.’

‘I was alone for longer than any of you,’ the Star said. ‘You might argue that it made me mad. I was a child abandoned to this planet, homesick and lost.’

Elsie looked sharply at its image, at the mask of the dead girl Ahmes which it used to present itself. It looked at her appealingly with large dark eyes as though to tug upon the heart strings of the woman who would be its mother.

‘Stop that,’ Elsie ordered remembering again that she contained a part of the creature’s mother within her. ‘You will not plead for understanding; you knew every step of the journey you took and believed in it entirely. The things you did to Will and to Ahmes cannot be blamed on madness for too much planning was needed to reach your goal, you were of sound mind, cruel, but sound. Your choices were your own to make. You are not innocent, do not try to persuade me.’

‘But, mama…’ the girl breathed.

‘Take that off,’ Elsie snapped. ‘You wear her face like as a tribute, but you sully Ahmes’ memory. You try to use her even now, but her face was never yours to wear. She was unutterably brave. Nothing but a child and yet she defied you, knew right from wrong. She was alone too, more alone than you or Will and yet she was never selfish, she gave her heart, she trusted and no matter what you did to her she did not lose that capability, not even at the end. No, I will not have you wear that face in the hope of drawing sympathy, show me your true self again.’

The scrying pool shifted and the almond eyes of the Star appeared in darkness. It floated gently as Elsie watched the next part of Will’s long voyage. Slowly he was making his way through Europe, begging in the streets. As he went North he gathered more of a costume about him, bought some cheap tricks to show the public, and set about presenting a show for children in the French markets where their mothers shopped. His smile could charm the ladies even when his eyes were tired, and the cards and tumblers, missing coins, the pretty ribbons which he pulled without effort from his sleeves, charmed the children. He sold them puppets and dolls, catapults and conkers, and as the image began to fade Elsie saw a spinning top that danced amongst the cobbles. She watched it with tears wet upon her cheeks. Had he known, when he made it, how similar it was? Did he even remember the girl he made it for, the joy in her eyes when she first saw it? Will Charity, his curly hair too long and tied back in a bow, the stubble on his jaw dark and the fit of his clothes too loose. Soon he would make it back to England, present himself to his battalion, be told he was a hero, but he would carry every day the weight of one little girl’s sweet laughter, the sound just outside his memory’s broken reach.

‘They called it a miracle,’ the Star said, ‘When he returned. When slowly his memories formed some sort of picture. It took a while and there were gaps, gaps where I was buried, gaps where I helped him escape. He would never have made it back without me.’

‘He was set to marry,’ said Elsie ignoring the Star’s attempt to paint itself in a better light, ‘To a girl called Catherine but she gave up all hope and married another.’

‘She could have waited for him,’ the Star said, familiar with the tale.

‘But she did not. While he was blindly wandering Europe trying to get home, she married. He lost her because of what you did and it broke his heart.’

‘Well,’ the Star considered, ‘I would have thought you would be happy for that outcome, Mrs Charity? Did you not win his love in her place? Would you not have waited where she failed to?’

Elsie shook her head and wiped the tears from her cheeks. ‘You see it as a competition, but you have no concept of love,’ she said, ‘Catherine suffered too, perhaps she still does. Perhaps her husband knows he can never truly compete, perhaps it causes pain for him too, to know that for years Will still thought of her and maybe she of him. All of these circumstances are because of you. However, you might frame it Will’s heart broke. You robbed him of his happiness, of the family he might have had, that his friend Charles now parades before him. You did that.’

‘No,’ said the Star serenely, ‘Men did that. I forced nobody’s hand, I merely shed light upon their actions and they make their choices. ’

Elsie folded her arms tight across her chest and stared hard at the ground. ‘As I see it all you have ever done is bring pain.’

‘Maybe in these latter years that is true, but the Curse takes many forms,’ the Star said patiently, ‘And that is what your people so often forget. That this is a _Curse._ Call it what you will, Child of the Moon, Order of the Red Sun, it is the same. It controls you and Will and your child just as it has controlled generations before you. Just as it controls me. Just as it controls my parents. The Curse brings men prosperity, but it takes whatever it desires in exchange. It separates families, places children upon altars; it demands sacrifice, it ends lives. But that is not my decree, but men’s. Ever since they wanted to control the power, ever since they chained me to this earth, chained the Moon and the Sun to the amulets. If they would let me go, if they would release the Red Sun and Moon to take me home, all of it would end. I am not your enemy Elsie, I never have been.’

‘It has to end,’ Elsie said quietly, she felt the Star eye her curiously. ‘If what you say is even half of the truth then we must end this Curse.’

‘It would seem that I have told you all you wanted to know,’ the Star said, ‘What happened to the girl, what happened to Will, our history, our place upon the earth and in the heavens. The endless cycle of the Order, the Protected, the Protector and me. You know now why you must help me, you know what you must do, to help your own family. We all of us, need to be free of this Curse.’

Elsie felt her jaws clench protectively at the last statement. ‘The theory is a pretty one, let us unite to send you and your family back into the heavens and we live happily ever after,’ she said stiffly, ‘but I saw the details of your story in the scrying pool. We would risk our lives to save you. Our innocent daughter risks her life now before it has even started. You share her place on earth and she is so fragile. What you ask of us could kill her. It could kill all of us.’

The Star said nothing.

‘You try now to speak with kindness but your voice is unfamiliar with its tone,’ Elsie said, ‘I have seen how you treated Ahmes, how you treated Will and actions hold more meaning than mere words. You are eternal, our brief lives mean so little to you, it would be simple to turn the tables and sacrifice us. All the damage you have done, all those little girls you burned through, all the strength you took from Will, that you will take next from me. You have weakened and aged him, but it does not matter one wit because now you are within my daughter and you will burn through her instead. All we need to do is get you home, it is no matter if we are finished after that.’

‘We are progressing to the Great Barrow,’ the Star said, ‘There is yet enough time for all...’

‘Oh!’ Elsie said, ‘How generous that is! Enough time! Enough time for you, maybe, but for us, for we mere mortals I suspect it is another story entirely. When we finally rid ourselves of you, what then well remain? A few years, a few months, how long is our sentence before death? Will we even make it at all? You have no sense of import when it comes to human lives, you could be lying to us all just to have your way. You would take us to that place and perform a ritual which would end our existence to ensure your own! I have no reason to trust you, Star, not after all that I have seen, how dare you presume I will give you my help now.’

‘It’s all right, Elsie,’ Will’s voice cut through the damp air of the cavern and she turned to find him sitting on the steps to the mezzanine. Half way up, dressed in his pale shirt and breeches. The light of the fire beneath him and the candles above like stars. He sat as though he perched upon the steps to heaven, like a man waiting on the Judgement, like an angel waiting on its fall. 'Hear her out, we are after all rather stuck with one another, always have been, according to what I have just seen. It would appear that some form of compromise must be found, even with the most fickle of the the Gods. Isn’t that right, old friend?'


	38. Chapter 38

‘Will!’ Elsie jumped to her feet but stumbled over her words. Dear Lord, how much had he borne witness to? Memories he thought were lost mixed with those that gave him pain. Things he could not touch on in conversation but that made him scream out in his sleep. Ahmes, the Shaman, the years within the wilderness. He already wrestled with such inner torment, had clung to Elsie vulnerable and needy just hours before, and now the chance that he had seen this horror, the true nature of the thing that possessed his child, the thing that had killed Ahmes; a dismissive, disinterested selfish being, drinking of his goodwill all this time only to sap him of his lifeblood and his vigour.

‘Will, I’m so sorry,’ Elsie said. ‘I ought not to have watched. I should have sent the thing away.’

‘I would have watched,’ he admitted, pursing his lips a little, ‘If the tables turned, if the pools held the answers to the pain a loved one carried. That ‘thing’ you speak of is a God, whether good or bad, and best not just dismissed. As for the rest, it was all such a mystery I’m quite certain your curiosity would get the better of you, I know mine would given the option, in fact I can vouch for it.’ He dipped his head slightly with a tiny laugh. ‘Quite the tall tale,’ he said with a strange sense of pride, ‘Quintessential William Charity.’

‘You saw?’

‘I saw,’ he said softly, ‘At least I saw enough, and I must say it makes rather a lot of sense, now that I can see all of it at last.’ Charity paused and forced the eyes of the Star to look upon him.

‘You have been with me all these years, silent companion, lending me the power to heal my wounds but only so you might one day have the pleasure of killing me yourself. What a sterling job you are doing of that. I feel it more each day. Sapping me of all my strength, wasting my muscles, adding years to my life so that my hair turns grey. Oh, I have felt it coming for some time now, but could not recall the source. Was it an old injury, a cursed blade, an unseen poison? Now, I see the source, looking back at me from an enchanted pool. I must thank you, I’ll waste no more of my dissolving energy on trying to find a cure or cause. It was you locked within me, all this time. How well you must know me.’

Elsie waited just a moment to swallow down an angry lump within her throat before she turned back to the Star, ‘Heal him,’ she said, ‘Make him better, give him back the time you have taken from him and we will think about helping you.’

‘Elsie,’ Will said, shaking his head at her clumsy negotiation. ‘We do not get a choice in that, you cannot bargain with a God, they tend to call the shots.’

‘You heard it, you _saw_ it! All it has taken from you, the harm it has done, your life is shortened and I will not bear it, it is not fair, you of all people have earned your time upon this earth, you of all should be free of suffering. We can refuse what it wants from us until it agrees, we have that much to bargain with.’

‘And you?’ Will said, ‘The Star is within you now too. You and our child, both cursed in the same way I was. It is you I should be pleading for, haggling for a deal. Whether I live or die matters not, whether you and our child survive, there lies the critical matter. We do not know how much time we have but looking now at the strength that creature had over Ahmes, over me, I would hazard that if we do not rid your body of its possession there will be no child, and there will be no Elsie either.’

Elsie felt a weight drop deep inside her, rooting her to the spot. It was not like Will to be so blunt, but it was a changed Will she saw before her now. Exhaustion stripping him of niceties and reassuring words. Injuries still weeping. Just the truth of their situation, the clock ticking louder than it ever had and no longer just for him. He looked across at her, his lashes damp but the large dark pupils of his eyes fixed upon her. He was right the longer she carried the Star, the more of her life force it would take, the more of her child.

‘W-what do we do?’ Elsie said faintly.

‘We need to make a decision,’ Will said. ‘And I fear there are few options.’ He lent forward so that his elbows rested upon his knees and let his hands dangle between them. ‘We are both likely to be fading, we are running out of time and we must think of the child and act before it is too late.’

He drew himself up a little and looked between the two scrying pools on either side of the clearing, one showing his own tale and the other blank. ‘Star,’ he said, ‘Show us Adato and his men,’ He nodded to the second pool and incredibly an image became clear upon it, the Star allowing his request. The men in costume Elsie had seen at the Harvest festival appeared out of the black, their beaked masks and dark robes streaming behind them. They were climbing a hill to an unknown Dead Hall.

‘Here is what we know. The ancient order of the Child of the Moon is active,’ Will said, ‘The same one Ahmes belonged to. Adato has raised the dead to chase us down, and seeks the Star to re-establish his order. He wields the golden staff the Shaman used to wipe my memories. He is a powerful necromancer and we cannot fight him, we’ve discovered that before. He attacked us at Sherburn and chased us into this dead end. For all we know he is above this cavern still, waiting for us.’

‘He wants our baby,’ Elsie said.

‘He wants the thing inside her,’ Will corrected, squinting at the pool as though finding it hard to focus with tired eyes. ‘He will follow us to the Barrow in the hope he may use the rituals to claim the Star, tear it from our baby before she is even born.’

Elsie felt sick, bile rising in the back of her throat at the image of the ghouls they had encountered taking her child, Star or not. ‘There is nowhere safe we can go?’ she asked. ‘Lydia? She offered us shelter before? Her magics were strong enough to keep them out.’

‘I do not wish to land this at her doorstep,’ Will said with a steely tone.

‘She would help, willingly, Will.’

‘No, she has Sandy to think of. She must put her first, I made her promise me. I fear there is nowhere safe to go,’ Will said, ‘We cannot wait this out while the Star is devouring your lifeforce, the baby’s lifeforce. Adato has trapped us in a cavern beneath a Dead Hall with no living priestess. He could force his way into this cave….he … oh… Oh God, no! Lydia!’

Will leapt down from his position on the steps and closed the gap between him and the scrying pool in moments. The images had morphed and changed while they had spoken. Dead Hall after Dead Hall falling prey to Adato and his spirits, and Will was now watching frantically. The creatures hunted through villages and raided tombs. Fire and bloodshed, the priestesses and acolytes murdered and the dead rising from their unprotected crypts. Crypts just like the one they were under now. Crypts just like…

‘Oh!’ Elsie cried, realising what it was Will was looking at, at what the pool was showing him as he leaned both hands against the frame, so close he was almost touching the waters, his panting breath creating ripples. Gradually the picture changed to the Dead Hall at Sherburn where they had spent so much time with Will’s family. There were flames licking around the doorway, a gaping blazing mouth high upon the hilltop. The dead staggered, burning, out of their tomb, cinders and hot ashes caught upon the breeze, swirling through the dark. Elsie dashed to the scrying pool, and without thought lifted her hand, her glowing fingers vanishing into the picture, the heat of fire upon her palm, just a step and she would be there, she would be within the frame, standing outside the Dead Hall ready to find her friends, but Will grabbed her suddenly from behind and dragged her away.

‘No! No, don’t Elsie! Stop! You can’t stop them! ‘

‘It must be a lie,’ she cried in disbelief as she scrabbled to touch the water again. ‘They cannot be gone, the Star would trick us with this scene!’

‘You must not step through! You could be sent anywhere!’ Will said holding her back as best he could.

‘But what if we look upon the present?’ Elsie insisted. ‘What if we could help?’

‘The risen dead almost killed us there before, we are no match for them!’

‘But Lydia! And Sandy!’ Elsie struggled in his arms, ‘We can’t just leave them! Will, for God’s sake, Will!’ Elsie let a jet of magic fly from her free hand and hit the scrying pool. The water churned and boiled, hissed and spat at her. ‘Let me go!’

‘You cannot step into the past,’ The Star said levelly from its place. ‘You will be destroyed. I only paint a picture for you now so that you may see and realise. There is no going back.’

The steaming water settled at the Star’s voice and Elsie looked back into the pool where a red sun was rising over the burnt out Hall, the little table outside where Will had shown Sandy his magic tricks now shattered and burned black. There was no sign of Sandy or of Lydia. Charity bit his lip and closed his eyes hard for a moment. He took a long breath through his nose and let it go.

‘We don’t know this is real,’ Elsie said softly trying to comfort herself as much as Will, ‘The Star…’

‘I have shown no lies,’ the Star said from its presence in the other pool. ‘Not when recounting Will’s story, not when demonstrating what happened to the priest-girl and not now. I have learned I have no need to lie, there is no strength in deceit, it is a human failing. The Dead Halls have been destroyed, Adato closes in upon the Temple at the Barrow just as you do. He destroys the safest path in order to weaken you. I show only your reality and truth so that you may see the dilemma which affects us both, the danger ahead.’

Elsie took Will’s arm, gently kissed his triceps as he stood before the pools, his eyes closed.

‘I always knew there was a risk,’ Will confessed, his eyes still avoiding the destruction of the Dead Hall. ‘But I have to put you first, I always have to put you first. You and now the baby. Lydia wouldn’t want it any other way and she’s a clever girl, they both are, her and Sandy.’ He nodded to himself, ‘We have to trust Lyds, she’ll keep them safe, she has to. She will, she _will_ keep them safe.’ He repeated it under his breath, his face grey. ‘She will keep them safe.’

Will looked a final time into the pool, his eyes glassy, and turned his back to it, shoulders slumped.

Elsie watched his expression wrestle with his fear for a moment. His loyalty to Elsie and his child fighting his urge to seek out and protect his sister and hers. His eyes kept darting to the pool, then recalculating his options, but then Elsie saw the Star’s pool shimmer and Adato’s undead move like black clouds around the gutted Dead Hall above the cavern they were trapped in. Will saw it too.

'They are nearly upon us,' he said.

‘They are everywhere,’ the Star said. ‘At every Dead Hall, every landmark that marks your way. You must make your decision and soon. We cannot protect ourselves against the necromancer. You must go to the Barrow.’

Will levelled a disbelieving look at the Star. ‘Well that would suit you, not sure how well it sits the rest of us.’

‘If we cannot go back to Sherburn then we have to do as Lydia advised,’ Elsie said, ‘We can trust her even if we cannot trust the Star. If we make it to the Great Barrow as she suggested...’

'No, I fear we cannot.' Will sighed an exhausted sound. ‘Lydia was unaware of all we have now discovered. She trusted the high priestess, but The Priestesses at the Great Barrow will work for the Order of the Red Sun and they are as much our enemy now as Adato. The Barrow is the place where our amulets were forged. Forged to keep the magic we have within, bound to this earth. The whole Order wants to keep you and I and the Star apart, it has for hundreds of years, across a dozen countries and continents. If we show up there, they will separate us, destroy us, hell bent on harnessing the power they believe that we contain.’

The cavern fell silent but for the hiss and pop of steam within the scrying pools. Elsie looked about her but saw no exits amongst the dark stone and water and knew Adato's spiritmen were closing in. They had only themselves upon which to rely and no chance of running.

‘There is only one thing we can do,' Elsie said, 'We stay together and we take the fight to them.'

Will looked at her with surprise. ‘Fight?’ he said.

‘They think we are filled with power, perhaps we need to show them that we are.’

Will’s disbelief swept over his features. ‘Fight a whole Order? A battalion of the risen dead, spirits and ghouls. Turn up on their doorstep, all three of us, the three they would hold captive and torment given any chance at all. You and I with our pretty necklaces and little miss sunshine over there, who can do a wonderful job in pointing us out with her guiding spell,’ he jabbed a thumb at the Star. ‘I hate to say this, but they are necromancers and powerful witches. We aren’t in the same league as the Order.’

‘Will, we _are_ the Order,’ Elsie said tersely, ‘Don’t you remember the night I ran from the cottage? Those men who attacked me, this pretty amulet took their lives when I was threatened? The power it has, has not even been explored, the power you have, untouched and hidden all these years, and the power the Star might channel through us both. They are unknowns but I am ready to believe the celestial Gods have placed hidden strengths in us and now is the time to discover them. Unite us and I think we stand a chance.’

'The triumvirate,' the Star said softly, 'The powers my parents sent to earth to retrieve me, a God, and remove me back to heaven. Have you any notion of that power? Of why it was so important to keep us all apart?'

Will was nodding slowly. ‘It would take them by surprise,’ he agreed, 'Largely because it would certainly take me by surprise too and I profess to know my way about an Aracana or two. They will not see this coming.'

‘It may not take as much as you think,’ Elsie said. ‘Power, true power leads to fear. They will be terrified in our presence not knowing what we are capable of as a Triumvirate if we are offended. Priestesses and acolytes, worship at the altars of the Barrow, appease with sacrifices and offerings, but we, we contain the reason that they worship, now they need to appease us’

‘The Barrow is the seat of all the power,’ the Star said, ‘The place where our power was once placed in chains, but it can also release it, now that we three are together. Release you from your bonds to the amulets power, release me back to the heavens and, ' and here the Stars tone altered, 'If we are careful, then the rituals once used to contain us, could be used to reverse the damage the Curse has done, to all of us.’

Will hesitated, but something was twinkling in his eyes. _‘'_ Reverse the damage? You mean the damage you are causing as we speak. The damage done to us? To me? Can I believe in you, little star?’

‘Yes.’ The Star confirmed, unflinching under Elsie’s scrutinising gaze. ‘The damage I have done. I believe it could be reversed if I was released from the binding magics. That is to say, I would be willing, and the Sun and Moon would have the power to do so. ’

‘How can we trust you?’ Will said. ‘You who would throw us into a pit with the heads of both Orders and bet on who would win for your entertainment.’

‘Will,’ Elsie said laying a hand upon his arm. 'I think... I think the Star means it.'

‘I wish only to go home,’ the Star said. ‘That has been my only constant all these years. That is my trade. Take it or leave it.’

Will scrubbed his hands down his face, tired but at the same time Elsie could sense that something bubbled up within. Beneath the fatigue lay the adventurer, long swaddled by grief but burgeoning now with new hope and the promise of a different future. If he could save both Elsie and their child, if there was just a chance to save himself, then all his duties would be at last fulfilled and he would be free. The idea of freedom was a strong lure for a man like him and challenging odds made it all the more attractive.

‘I wish there was a simple plan without so much to lose,’ he said, ‘But simple was never my game and I always play for high stakes. The winning here will take a double helping of some patented Charity recklessness and a quart full of courage, but I think we will have to trust you after all, Little Star, for I see no other options on the board. We could lose, on paper we can manage nothing else, but oh, if we win, then to win is to win our freedom from this Curse, and lead an unrecognisable life of happiness. A home, a wife, a child, and no ancient gods suckling upon the three of us at all,’ he looked at Elsie warmly. ‘Isn’t that worth fighting for?’ he winked and watched her as she smiled.

Will looked back at the Star, ‘I will keep my word to you as a gentleman if you do the same for me. If we can release you safely, you will keep your promise to heal the damage you have done?’

The Star inclined its head, as much a promise as it might make.

‘Very well,’ Will said. ‘Are we ready? How do we start? I’m not even sure how to get out of this cavern to find our path.’

Elsie stepped towards him and touched the grey curls which had fallen on his forehead. She pushed them back so she might see the lines upon his skin. Years of sorrow and of worry etched upon a hero’s face to show the roads his life had taken, a map, which if she read closely enough, would point out their next steps.

‘I am proud of you, Will Charity,’ Elsie said, ‘You have been ill-used so long and here we are again facing another battle. We had no clear path forward, but you found one for us built on trust, because far from here, we had already chosen. Our pledge to one another is greater than a pledge to any Order ever could be. Just by being together, we have turned our backs upon the roles that we were born to play. We picked our way through every obstacle without their help because we are on our own side now, Captain Charity, and we are surviving, the three of us. Though some of it we have to leave to Fate, we can be sure that we are following our destiny, just as Ahmes did all those years ago because she did that for you Will, so that you might live. You can't stop now, you cannot let her down. Live, for her, for you, and me, and the baby. This is where we begin, truly. This is just the start.’

He took her hand and kissed the palm, held it warm against his cheek before a rumbling from the cavern drew his attention. The scrying pools shimmered as the couple stood between them. One showed Will’s journey from the past, endlessly journeying through times he could not recall, storm clouds high above him as he struggled on alone, and the second showed Lydia’s empty Dead Hall, flames licking about the ancient stone, soot and ash in the air, a picture of destruction, an image from the past that could not be changed. The image made more painful by the emptiness Elsie felt within it, the lack of life, but all she could do was pray that her friends had made their escape, that her instincts had been wrong and they lived on.

The waters of the underground lake before them began to churn and Elsie got a sense of something powerful within her, commanding both acknowledgement and praise for the trick it was about to perform. She gave it little as her uncertainty dictated but the Star carried on regardless, making itself known again, doing a clever thing, using its silenced voice. It felt like a child begging to impress. It so wished to prove its worth, to prove that it was with them, and it wanted to go home. The fickle creature switched and switched again its goals. For now it was A God upon the verge of success, the finish line within its sight; it had focused its intentions on freedom and its determination was as a force of nature.

There was no exit to the cavern so now the Star provided one. The thing that was at once Elsie’s child and yet utterly separate from it, a creature which caused such inner conflict between her heart and mind but that no matter how angry she felt ,she loved regardless. Therein was her weakness and Elsie knew it, placing too much trust and hope into the Star. The innocent life she loved more than her own, lived in the shadow of the God that had caused them all such pain, and yet some part of her loved it too, some part of her was proud as the black waters started bubble before her.

She suspected it was the part of her which was as ancient as the Star, older, wiser and more measured. It gave it the praise it sought, the approval it had waited thousands of years to hear, it towed it into line when it overstepped its mark. It wanted to believe its child could become kinder, better and more human. Inside her Elsie felt some form of communication between those primitive parts of Moon and Star and knew that real love never altered, not even millennia later, and a mother’s love especially was rich in hope. She felt her heart soften, some tentative trust begin to form as the waters stirred. The Star reunited in part with its mother, hearing the echo of her voice and her instruction, had given them an option for escape and salvation. Love, ancient and unchanging would provide them with a path to follow.

The tip of an ornate scrying frame emerged from the black waters. Firelight sparkled within it, water cascading from either side as it rose. Larger than the other pools, its mirrored surface made of glass and not water, taller than a man. As the wet drained away Elsie and Will could see the scene within. Here then was their path. They could not go backwards, could not change the pasts presented in the smaller pools, only step forth into this one.

A mountainside dusted in early snow which grew thicker as the eye ascended. A road which petered out to nothing some miles up. Steps carved into the rock, uneven and dangerous. The paw prints of great beasts wending between dead scrub and snow drifts. And at the top a massive domed building surrounded by stone arches with long worn carvings of predatory animals, which at the apex of the bow the great symbol of the red sun was rendered in gravel, carved and decorated in bronze. The sky beyond was grey and cloudy, a stiff wind picked the snow up into swirls. Elsie traced a path of granite slabs with her eyes, right up to a heavy iron door. The handle was a carved Moon.

‘This must be the Great Barrow,’ Will said with a tell-tale swallow made of nerves. ‘Looks like quite the hike. I’m betting Adato and his pals will be here too. A sure-fire way of getting captured and tormented all over again. I mean, not trying to be the voice of Doom here but I’ve already survived the other half of the Order doing the unspeakable to me back in Abyssinia. I’m not all for popping up to Scotland for round two unless we have a pretty vigorous plan. Maybe some weapons,’ he looked at Elsie’s bare feet, ‘Some shoes at a push.’

From their left the Star shrank into itself and vanished and Elsie felt a presence, a reattachment in her body, the warm glow of magic taking place.

‘I think it’s working on it,’ she said as the light began to encircle her and then Will. He raised his eyebrows when a woollen coat appeared upon his back and a pistol and sword-cane at his side but his shock soon turned into a grin. Elsie looked down and found sturdy boots on her feet, heavy skirts and a cape.

‘Well,’ he said, grinning at her enthusiastically with the eagerness that came from terror , ‘We are certainly equipped!’

There was an ominous rattle and several large chunks of rocks fell into the lake around them. Elsie immediately looked up to the great hole above which she and Will had fallen through the night before. At first she could see only darkness and then a flicker of light in green. Will’s face dropped as he made the connection.

‘And not a moment too soon!’ he said quietly. He placed a gloved hand against the scrying mirror and let it swallow him to the wrist. ‘Chilly,’ he commented.

‘They got through the Dead Hall, they’re coming in!’ Elsie cried.

Another whisper of green, followed by the sculpted mask in brilliant white, long beaked and black eyed. The first of Adato’s undead emerged, floating high above them, one of many from two dozen Dead Halls raided and abandoned. His army was growing with every passing day and there would be more at the Barrow but right now they had to evade these few as they descended in the dark. Elsie screamed as Will grabbed her by the hand and fixed her with his green blue eyes.

‘Ready?’ he said, with an energy she had not seen in weeks, ‘It’s time to go. Leave these chaps behind and go straight to the top. The Red Sun, Elsie, the ones who have held us prisoner all our lives. It’s time to avenge the ones we loved, the ones before us, the generations who gave their lives so that these Orders could retain their stolen power. We can do this, I believe in you completely, I love you without question and if you think we can do this then so do I. Let’s take the battle to them, Elsie, and win the bloody war! Hold fast and we’ll be through that mirror in one, two, three!’ and with a look that conveyed a thousand words he jumped, by her side, into the great scrying pool emerging from the lake.

The cold hit her like stone, heavy on her chest, and she struggled to catch her breath until she opened her eyes and saw that she was not in the black water of the lake but laying in a bed of snow. There was a whirl of grey as Will spun by her side, a touch of a green serpent’s enchantment forcing its way to them through the scryer, across the magic of hidden miles. There was the sound of breaking glass, a dash of crimson and then silence and when Elsie looked up at last, it was at Will, pale against a paler sky, grey haired and damaged, but poised to wield his sword cane with his bleeding fist.

‘No going back,’ he said as she surveyed the broken scryer. ‘We’ve made our bed,’ he went on with a sparkling smile, ‘And between you and I, there is no-one with whom I’d rather share a bed than Mrs Eleanor Charity.’

Will bent to take Elsie’s hand, pulled her upright where they stood upon the mountain, and gazed up amongst the clouds at the Great Barrow’s granite arches; looking through them to the Last Great Temple of the Cursed Red Sun.


	39. Chapter 39

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem Will recites is adapted from a 19th Century poem called On Ederchaillis' Shore from the Book of Highland Minstrelsy 1846 available on Wiki here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolves_in_Great_Britain

Elsie dressed Charity’s lacerated hand while he took a moment to get their bearings. While the pair theoretically knew the place to be in the Northern wastes of Scotland, the environment was far from what they expected. Elsie for her part had imagined a mysterious building amongst undulating hills filled with purple heather or brilliant yellow gorse. It would be cold, but not bitter, misty but not so thick as to obscure the landscape entirely, in short it would retain an ethereal atmosphere like the castles in her romance novels and poetry. The countryside would sing to them in welcome and guide them to their goal, but the countryside here remained silent but for the howl of the wind and the distant sound of the restless sea. She rebuked herself for her silly girlish notions, even after weeks of risky travelling ought to have dispelled them.

Will on the other hand had anticipated freezing temperatures and looked about him grimly as the couple shivered at the start of their long climb, but he had not guessed the dull grey stone buildings and bleak flat moorland to be quite as featureless and solemn. He had done a good deal of travelling and visited a good number of obscure temples and expected something more vibrant and though his prime emotion was one of caution and serious application to the task in hand, he was none the less a little disappointed not to be tripping over carvings and primitive art.

All however was not lost, and Will clung to the glimpses that gave him the most hope for adventure. The Temple was almost invisible amongst the fog, buried behind its grey granite archways, but when the mists teased and passed for fleeting seconds, the building itself was revealed to be a bright bespeckled crimson in colour, some Will said was called a red flamed granite, but which looked more like an angry bleeding crushed and broken bone jutting from the rocks. The symbol of the Red Sun, high on the temple and decorated with its bronze flames and ruby coloured stone, looked down upon the countryside and snow like an angry eye and Elsie felt it touch her, render her terrified in its gaze.

Will was still staring into it as she covered his hand and sent a healing power through her own. Their joined palms glowed warmly in all the cold and his flesh knit together where they touched. Elsie rubbed her fingers over his knuckles noting how the skin was scarred despite her efforts, and then slipped his glove back into place.

‘That scarlet granite doesn’t even form in this area, we are too close to the western sea, you can smell it, the salt, stone like this comes from further inland,’ Will was saying, ‘I’ll bet the damned thing has erupted straight from the ground with the power of a spell, and crouched amongst these hills for centuries since. Cloaked most probably, couldn’t have a local shepherd or fisherman stumbling across that, and just look at this fog, mystical I’d say, so ridiculously thick. There is a high wind blowing the sky should be clear unto the ocean,’ He looked down at his hand, ‘Thank you,’ he said flexing it. ‘We should get a wriggle on, Adato’s boys can’t be far away.’

Elsie looked up sharply. ‘But the mirror, you smashed it, they’ve no way through now surely?’ she said with a note of panic.

‘That particular little group of undead spooks might not, but the man himself, the staff wielding necromancer who has been raising the dead all the way from Abyssinia to our own back yard of late? Fairly sure he can pop up wherever he likes.’

‘But how?’

‘Sold his soul I’ll wager,’ Will said distractedly as he pulled on a pair of tiny shaded glasses to fend of the glare of the snow, ‘He’s not bound by the laws of physics any longer, escape artist extraordinaire, not a set of cuffs ever forged could hold him now. He’s made more of breath than flesh and can vanish just as quickly.’

Elsie nodded, feeling suddenly surrounded by unpleasant possibilities and very out of her depth. Will had spoken often of his journey’s and battles with cursed creatures, risen dead and spirits found within ancient tombs temples and crypts, but it had always been in such a vein as an after dinner story, full of excitement and guaranteed a successful ending. Here, suddenly, she realised that the same man was all that stood between her, her child and this enemy, and that every bit of his knowledge and skill would be required to protect them.

Charity was focused and alert, moving about in his memory, picking up fragments which might cast light on their situation or lend him strength; the sum of his experience waiting at his fingertips so that it might be deployed. She looked at the set of his jaw, the red of his cravat startling amongst the white and grey of his costume and the hillside. She blinked and for a moment it turned into a thick gash at his throat, dripping down onto his shirt, and then it was gone, just a spectre to remind her how serious their business was.

Seemingly ready, Will moved her to one side of him so that he might grasp a pistol or sword at short notice and urged her with a gentle hand upon her back towards what looked like the base of the climb.

‘There’s so much fog,’ Elsie said, feeling its strange, chilled salt-damp in her mouth as she took each breath, ‘I cannot see more than a few yards. There could be anything out here, following or waiting to ambush us. Are there bears here? ’

‘Bears sleep away the winter,’ he said, scanning the fog.

‘Sensible animals,’ Elsie grumbled, ‘It is so cold, which would be bad enough but with the moisture in the air.’

‘Try and be a little positive, there’s a good girl,’ Will said with slightly gritted teeth. ‘And do it quietly before the bears and everyone else hears us.’

Something in his tone failed to give her pause as he intended but reminded her instead of the night they had run from the carriage her father had hired to take her away to be married. An image passed through her mind of her loudly rebuking her rescuer as he bid her get changed and move along or else they might be caught. Not so very long ago, if she counted the weeks and yet here they were, a lifetime later, still bickering. She looked at Will who although sharp with concentration looked more grey about the gills than he had a right to be. Elsie realised half his focus seemed to be going on staying upright, as motivated as he was and she thought of the Star, sapping him all these years, only to quit his body and trigger his decline.

No, she would not allow for a decline, he had to keep going, he had to, for all of their sakes and for the sake of the life they would live together after the fact. Elsie made a resolution, she would not keep a silence for if she did he would feel the pain in each step even more brightly. No, she would accompany him as she had always done, with a barrage of chatter and distraction..

‘My skirts are wet through, and it is so relentless, this snow must be two foot deep, three in places. Can you not feel it in your clothes already?’

Will looked down at the heavy woollen coat the Star had provided him with, the velvet collar and cuffs in black, already sparkling with tiny drops of water and his coat tails a darker shade of grey up to the thigh. ‘I’m sure as we keep moving we will hardly notice at all,’ he said with a cough.

‘I shall notice,’ Elsie said with a hint of petulance and he looked at her with curiosity. ‘Well, I shall!’ she declared and turned her face, just in time; in time to see the gratitude in his expression and the strength he drew from having her at his side.

Elsie continued to step with him, their pace synchronised, but her skirts getting heavier with each drag through the snow. So much snow, a good foot and a half, not the three of her exaggeration for effect, but enough to make their journey difficult without blocking the path entirely. It felt fresh under her feet and as she looked into the freezing fog ahead she could see tiny crystals sparkling in the air like shattered glass ready to cut them. It would be beautiful if she was not so afraid and so certain that everything about the venue wanted to hurt them. The way the weather closed about her like a cape, the way she could sense that beyond the cloud they walked in, the day was getting darker, ending too soon, and night falling.

‘We should ask the Star for guidance,’ Elsie said as the path began to grow more steep. ‘We are a long way out and the sun is setting.’

Will took a few paces in silence then paused at a strange pile of stones, forming a pyramid about four feet high with an old banner hanging from it limply in red and gold. Elsie pulled at it gently, let the shredded linen pass through her fingers until she recognise the emblem she wore about her neck there on the material.

‘The less we involved the Star the better,’ Will said.

‘Will, it has pledged…’

‘There is plenty of light,’ he lied. ‘And it cannot be that far if we just stay on the path, keep our eyes focused. All we need to do is….’

There was a long, low howl that cut through the twilight and the mist and made Elsie’s skin goosebump without warning, far moreso than the cold. She and Will froze and counted half a minute before it came again, deep and mournful, its direction hard to discern.

‘Will, what is that?’ she asked, wondering in fear if her jokes about bears and great beasts in the highlands were about to haunt her.

Charity set his jaw, his eyes bright. Another higher howl followed. Was it close, was it from a different point upon the compass? In truth it was hard to tell as the sorrowful notes seemed absorbed by the fog and snow, filtered down to the raw components of threat.

‘I’m fairly sure those are wolves,’ Will said as another howl came.

‘Wolves? There have not been wolves in this country for years, Will, they were slaughtered decades back even as far north as this. We must be imagining such a thing. They simply do not exist on these mountains!’

‘I daresay there haven’t been many great red temples in the mountains either,’ Will said.

‘I’m not having it, there must be another explanation, the sounds of the snow shifting, falling rocks, birds!’

Will looked at her steadily. ‘Wolves are associated with many things Elsie, predators, warriors, the form taken by devils or conjured by spirits. I didn’t say that these wolves are living on this mountain, I didn’t say that they were living at all.’

Elsie’s heart skipped another beat as the chilling sounds of another howl pierced the mist about them.

‘Something is here with us,’ she said flatly.

Will nodded just a little, his large eyes taking in every detail which they could in the darkening fog. ‘Come on, time to go,’ he grasped her hand and took his place by her side as the path they were following became narrower, twisting in circles around the rising crest of rock upon which the Temple was situated. Elsie caught a glimpse of the sheer drop on Will’s side and urged him to be careful, but it was growing so dark, and the sound of the wolves seemed closer at every step. She struggled to catch her breath with the relentless elevation, could feel herself hanging on to Will for dear life as her feet and knees grew painful with exertion and cold. She could hardly feel her toes even with the heavy warm boots the Star had provided, her legs were the same, wrapped in sodden skirts to the point she had to free herself of petticoats and layers trapping her legs with each step. After a quarter of a mile ascent Will drew to a stop, leaning on another curious pile of rocks and catching his breath which came so harshly it pained her to hear.

Elsie waited, her pulse slowing to almost normal as Will rested. It was quieter here, the wolf calls dropping away down the mountainside. Perhaps they were mistaken, perhaps they had left them alone but in the silence they left behind she could only focus on Will. Elsie tried hard not to see the struggle he was having, the way he leaned with both hands and dipped his head, fairly panting for breath, each puff jetting frozen from his lungs. He shifted and held a hand to his side, to the same old wound Elsie had healed for him long ago. He lifted his gloved palm away and flinched, wiped it down upon the tattered banner leaving a streak of dark blood upon the material, red on gold. Elsie caught his eye.

‘You didn’t mention that before,’ she challenged, ‘When did that wound reopen? Let me see to it, what did you do? You must tell me these things Will!’

‘Mystical blade,’ Will said with a shrug. He yelped at the movement and clapped his hand back over the wound.

‘That was months ago before we even met, and I healed it for you weeks ago, how has it broken down again?’

‘Doesn’t much matter the whens and hows,’ Will said again wiping his glove, ‘mystical things have memories, including apparently mystical stab wounds. Put it in the vicinity of this much power and energy and pop!’ he made an explosion sign with one hand and Elsie winced. ‘I think it’s making itself known as part of the larger magical picture. A reminder that we are going against the grain, taking on more than we can chew and other metaphors.’

‘Let me help!’ Elsie protested, ‘You are bleeding Will!’

‘I’m absolutely fine,’ he said adjusting his top hat, ‘It’s nothing, I don’t want you wasting your power on this when we are fighting God knows what up there,’ he nodded up the mountainside and the adopted a cheerful disposition, ‘and besides once we defeat these chaps we will have all the time in the world to put humpty dumpty back together.’

Elsie swallowed tightly, ‘All the time in the world?’ she asked.

Will looked away, straightened his waistcoat and overcoat to better cover the wound. ‘If the Star keeps its word,’ he said quietly, ‘Then we will all be free of the Order and she… it…. We have no choice but to have a little faith at this juncture, hmm?’ he pushed himself off the rocks and looked up the almost vertical path ahead with visible concern. It was too narrow now to go side by side, so he stepped ahead with a warning for Elsie to be careful, and with a slow plod, began to climb through the thick snow.

The fog muffled the sounds of their climb and their voices but every now and again Elsie could hear Will curse ahead of her as they moved higher into more fragile rock and he was forced to test out each step with his cane. At one point she saw him remove his hat and wipe his brow even in the freezing temperatures and more frequently she saw his hand cover his side. Within her she could feel the Star’s restless energy, its need to join them, provide light, provide heat, provide something, but Elsie was reluctant to let it loose after establishing some sort of agreement with it. Bright sunlit orbs on a mountainside at midnight would draw attention they could do without, and Elsie was firmly playing her role of parent, so the Star protested quietly but obediently, its agitation seeping into Elsie’s anxiety as the evening progressed.

After an hour or so Elsie could spot what seemed to be a wider area of rock extending under an outcrop and called to Will that it may be a place that they could stop and take some rest. She saw the tired lines of his face drop a little in relief as he nodded and saw the platform for himself.

‘All right,’ he said placing his cane in position to take his weight, ‘just a few minutes, just to get our strength back and….’

She heard him scream helplessly, a sound she had never before heard coming from Will Charity, not even in the images of his past she had viewed that day, but scream he did and within a second he was gone from her sight.

‘Will!!’ she was filled with terror, but a blast of light took her voice. It which moved so fast that Elsie could not even see how it formed, only that it spun through the air, plaiting in on itself until it formed a rope of starlight and dived down after Will. Then she saw it, unfurling from the familiar shape of the Star hovering just at the edge of the cliff-face, anchoring itself about a yard above the snow. Elsie ran forward, crouching on her knees in the cold wet snow.

‘Will! Will!’ she cried, her voice echoing off the stone and fog equally, the weather all about her like a solid wall of stone. Elsie peered down into the darkness and then she him.

Will was dangling some fifty feet down, the fogs about him clearing as the Star retrieved him. Wrapped thickly about his waist, providing him with a rope of gold to climb, the light both saved and guided him as between them the three began to pull him up. Wil scrabbled up the side of the cliff with what strength he had, while Elsie reached for his hand, pulling him the last few feet herself until he collapsed on his side in the snow, shocked and trying to regain his breath, the gold strands about his waist slowly fading.

‘I’m all right, I’m all right,’ he panted, closing his eyes.

Snow fell softly those few minutes but all else was silent as the little group regained its composure. Elsie held Will’s hand and looked at the Star thinking of the little spinning top Will had made for Ahmes, the golden rope about its waist. The resemblance was striking to the way the rope of light had bound him.

Strange the things the Star remembered, deliberately or not; the slivers of humanity that found themselves within it, the memories its was forced to share. It had moved so very fast to save Will that there was a chance it was not purely for selfish motives. Perhaps it was because of the little girl Ahmes and the love she had once felt for Will; perhaps for the baby Elsie carried who would love him as a father. The Star hovered uncertainty while Will recovered. Not approaching, nor fleeing, not quite understanding the force of its emotions as Will tumbled to what could have been his death, and not brave enough to speak; but Elsie could feel it, the fear inside, because, as ever, the Star could not hide from her.

‘Sorry about that,’ Will said, as they continued onto the larger plinth of rock. He dragged himself to his feet, his costume quite soaked through now from all directions and his shaded glasses twisted and placed into a pocket. ‘I was sloppy, ought to have paid attention, come along Captain Charity, buck up!’

‘Will,’ Elsie said and nodded sideways at the hovering Star.

‘What? Oh, yes, righto. Good thing the Star was here,’ he said somewhat reluctantly, ‘Very much appreciated, old thing,’ it bobbed on just ahead of him. ‘Look! We are almost at the first great arches. Once we get there, we will have to be somewhat more careful. Expect there will be a few ancient guards, some undead or whatnot, not entirely sure what to expect, but expect it all ladies, hmm? I’ll go ahead a little way and…’

The howling again. Closer this time, more prolonged. Several menacing mournful voices at once, communicating, signalling to one another. Will stopped and stood up straight with sword cane poised.

‘There is a village near here,’ Will said quietly, ‘If I remember my mythologies, and for many years it was said that they could not bury their dead for the fear the local wolves. Each night they would visit their cemeteries and sacred places to dig amongst their graves. They would drag the dead from their resting place and eat of their flesh, bite at their bones and embody their spirits.’

‘Will please…’ Elsie said anxiously.

‘There’s a poem,’ he said as the howls became louder and Elsie clung to him. ‘It summons them…’

‘Will no!’

Will withdrew the sword from his cane and backed them against the rocks, the wide flat area of granite stretched before them as their final object before the grounds of the Temple itself. Through the fog, half cleared by the presence of the Star, Elsie saw what she thought might be a huge gate.

‘We have to face them,’ Will said, ‘Like a test. Whether we pass or fail I can guarantee there will be no other way through to our goal.’

The howling grew. Spirits then, wolves embodying the lost souls they gnawed from bones of the dead, pacing in a pack before the gates of the temple. How could the Red Sun have ever been considered anything but a Curse if these were its acolytes? Elsie looked back at Will and his eyes were wild, posture tense, looking out into the gloom. The Star floated out before him so that he might see his enemy clearer, but nothing yet looked back.

‘ _On the black of the midnight shore,’_ Will began, his voice low but full of force and his eyes tracking across the fog.

_‘The grey wolf lies in wait,_

_Woe to the broken door,_

_And woe to the broken gate,_

_And the groping wretch whom sleety fogs_

_On the trackless moor belate;_

_For every grave we dug,_

_The hungry wolf uptore,_

_And every morn the sod,_

_Was strewn with bones and gore;_

_Now the lean and hungry wolf_ ,

_With his fangs so sharp and white,_

_His starveling body pinched,_

_By the frost of a northern night,_

_His pitiless eyes will scare the dark,_

_With their green and hostile light;_

_Come forth and hide no more,_

_In the black of the midnight shore.’_

Will paused upon the final line and looked out into the darkness and Elsie heard a growl nearby, and then another, saw his eyes flick towards the sound, a grin forming on his lips in triumph.

‘Come on then, green eyes,’ he challenged, ‘Show me those peepers.’

All about them in the fog there was silent movement, soft steps in snow, shadows in the twilight haze, a sense that creatures gathered all around them, paired dark eyes at waist height, three, six, a dozen beings; the stench of bloodied breath and the swish of tails, grey in the mist. Keeping Elsie behind him Will took a step forward, ignoring the wolves and focusing on their leader. A wolf which was taller than most of the animals, its fur black rather than silver and its eyes a vivid, magical green.

It took a step forward to meet them before its jaws opened, fangs white and tongue red, growing wider and wider until the whole mouth vanished, devouring itself. As the beast uncurled and altered, broke and reset bones, grew tall and shed its coat, its green eyes never lost their focus for a second; muscles bared and bloodied, tendons snapping into place and bones groaning in elongation the thing writhed and changed again until finally the tall body of a man appeared in robes which fluttered in the wind. Elsie dared to look as Will shielded her and saw the familiar mask of an animal’s skull and the golden staff of the green eyed emerald snake, as old as the Orders itself, the root of a necromancers power.

Adato raised a hand to his mask and pulled it away to reveal a weathered face; a beard once dark now peppered white, and a pair of black and soulless eyes, lacking both pupil and iris but glowing with something unnatural. He was no longer quite human, as Will had prophesised, so that but for the shape of him Elsie might have named him a ghoul. The air smelt of decay, of the bones dragged from the graves the wolves had eaten from and the resultant the creatures surrounding them loyal only to death and the Risen their master created.

‘William Charity,’ Adato said with a cracked voice dry from underuse. ‘It has been so long. If I had realised what you were when I first had you shackled, how different our lives would be, how little time I would have wasted. I have little time,’ he warned as he looked at Elsie, ‘Do no try to waste it with pitiful struggles, give me now what I have come for, _Elsie_ ,’

His black eyes bored into her and saw her fear, the slithering darkness wrapping tendrils about her heart and choking her breath. His gaze crossed over the hovering Star at her shoulder and the amulet about her neck with only mild interest; physical or magical manifestations of the Order were not what he sought, and she could feel it in his gaze, violating her body with its desires. It lasciviously followed the line of her cape, her skirts, her waist and then lingered to examine the hands she held protectively over her belly. He smiled crookedly, revealing the predator within, the space within his mouth no longer occupied by human teeth but sharped and needle like fangs. Elsie felt herself begin to tremble and Will’s muscles shake with anger as he pushed her back.

Adato held his staff aloft so that the eyes of the serpent might cast a cold green light upon Elsie’s belly and allowed his tongue to wet his lips, slowly savouring the taste it brought him after so long searching.

‘Child of the Moon,’ he said, ‘I have come to reclaim you.’

Will tore from Elsie’s grasp, his cane held in both hands, and went for Adato’s throat.


	40. Chapter 40

Surrounded by the wolves, the dark stone of the mountain all around them but for the smooth granite clearing and the high iron gates to the Temple, Elsie had never felt more vulnerable. She knew Charity to be a skilled fighter, as proficient in the martial arts as he was traditional British methods of combat. Swords and guns, pistols and blades, he was quick to react and accurate in his aim, but she knew that what he fought that night was no ordinary foe, but the thing that had stalked them over hundreds of miles, whose magic had previously held them bound and terrified in Sherburn on Harvest night, and whose spells had caused pain and weakness and had almost taken Charity from her. Will had not been able to fight them then, when he was well and whole, and now he faced them feeling feeble and unprepared.

Through the bitter fog he charged at the ghoul he had first met as a man in Abyssinia so many years ago, as ready to strike as hard a blow as his aching muscles would allow, but Will was thrown aside before he could even make contact. The low rumble of hollow mockery rose from Adato as his victim’s damaged body struck the snow-covered granite close to Elsie. The cry he let out sent a chill of pain through her own bones, but he quickly scrabbled to his knees and fought to find his feet, using the cane that would be a weapon as a brace for his shaken frame. As he righted himself his boot caught the brim of his fallen top hat and it rolled free of his shadow as the snow whitened his already greying hair.

Adato spread his arms as though he might greet an old friend, and tilted his covered head, his robes flowing from either side of his false gesture of welcome. The wind, caught in the rocky circles high above the moorlands caused the material to flutter, but the snow frithered around him, too afraid to fall. The Star vanished suddenly and Elsie felt it tremble within her as Will drew his sword from the cane and began to circle his enemy slowly, his back to the dozen hungry beasts surrounding the clearing and one arm stretched at his side to shield Elsie’s figure. His eyes darted from Adato, to the wolves, to the emerald headed staff the necromancer clutched.

‘Come,’ Adato said, ‘Won’t you try again, Captain?’ His dark eyes dropped to Will’s waistcoat and to the seeping wound that had left him drained and exhausted on the climb. It was almost black in the odd light that surrounded them, and oozed stickily just under his silver watchchain. ‘Of course, you may pass your turn if you are finding the challenge difficult…’ Adato offered as graciously as he might an opponent at fencing. Elsie studied him from behind Will, noted the changes in his character from the rough and basic man he had once been in Abyssinia. A superstitious thief had since mastered the power that had slept within the ruins of that Temple and his ambition had not stopped there. The dead were his business now and he knew enough to have them follow his command.

‘Never!’ Will pronounced, ‘William Charity will rise to every challenge!’ Elsie saw Will draw the pistol from his hip and level it at the ghoul.

The tone of Adato’s laugher changed to a low pitying chuckle, ‘You fled from the challenge as I remember it, Charity, straight out of the village and up to the Dead Hall. Did you not run and hide behind your sister’s skirts? Beg her for protection?’

‘She held you off well enough,’ Will said, ‘Her magics kept you out.’

‘For a time,’ Adato conceded. ‘But her barriers were bound to weaken. My companions almost killed you, did they not? A challenge that proved too difficult in the end? You continued to run from them rather than face them in battle. Too much for you, Will? They were certainly too much for your sister, perhaps she ought to have followed your lead and fled.’

Elsie’s heart leapt.

‘Shut your cursed mouth!’ Will warned the ghoul, a tremble running through him. 

‘She spoke bravely at the end, so like her brother,’ Adato said, ‘Such courage in your family. I wonder when I kill you, if you will beg for mercy? Lydia did not, but that will not surprise you, not a single plea passed her lips. Except for the child, of course.’

‘You cur!’ Will made to lunge at Adato but Elsie stopped him, gripped the arm that protected her and held on fast.

‘No! He is trying to make you angry, trying to force you into mistakes. Do not listen to his lies. We cannot know what has happened to them! We cannot trust his word!’

‘That little girl, the one who had once saved you, we made sure she was subject to our special attention to make up for her behaviour at that Fayre…’ Elsie saw Will’s grip upon the pistol shake as his gaze wavered and he looked down at the ground, his breath coming in confused and painful bursts.

‘No,’ he started, his voice losing its strength, ‘No, I won’t believe it, I will not believe it,’

Adato held up a hand and slowly the wind ceased to blow, the snow fell silently and all that could be heard was on again the sea , ancient and eternal.

‘Listen,’ the ghoul instructed, but Elsie had already heard. Through the fog and far away the ocean sang the echoes of a child; the high cries piercing amongst the rushing of the tide, the words just out of reach but the tone unmistakable in its terror. Will’s eyes turned glassy even as the muscles in his jaw tensed, anger blanching his pupils wide and black, but his treacherous feet rooted to the spot.

‘What did you do?’ he asked. Adato stepped forward at a languid pace and bent over the man who would be his next victim. From where she stood Elsie could feel his breath, icy but rank on the strange still air. The hiss of his voice touched her face.

‘Everything,’ he said, and his laughter began in earnest, the terrifying creature inside making itself known as row upon row of his tiny needled teeth rose and fell in transformation.

Will looked down, his eyes closing, and the sword in his hand drooping at his side, the tip lost in the snow.

’Will,’ Elsie pulled herself closer to him, shook him as one might try to rouse a man who walks in dreams, ‘Will, don’t give up, Will!’

Behind her she could feel the frozen rancid breath of the wolf pack as they closed the circle. Adato was right, this threat was beyond them, and one could not fight battles purely on the strength of injustice. She had to think quickly, if they could not defeat them perhaps they could hold them off as they had in Sherburn. There had to be a way but the creatures they faced were far more powerful than anything either of them had encountered before, and they were horribly outnumbered.

Elsie’s brow knit suddenly as she looked towards the necromancer. Outnumbered. She had been outnumbered one late summer’s evening and it had woken something in her, an unguided spell aimed at her enemies which stopped their hearts, a magic that come straight from her untested amulet when she had been threatened. It had been a mistake and Will had never let her speak of the event, but there was no denying that Elsie Fitzjames had killed, that her powers could be focused like blades. She moved to Will’s side and looked straight into Adato’s grim and unnatural visage. Slowly the ghouls head turned so that it might regard her piercing stare.

‘Do I detect a challenge?’ he asked. ‘I hear you have some healing powers, girl, that you’ve earned the title witch. Your amulet provided me with a minor inconvenience when last we met but its spell soon crumbled in the wake of my staff,’ he extended the serpent’s head towards her and Elsie remembered for a moment the glow of the Red Sun had dimmed under its green enchantment, but she did not waver. She had learned much since the encounter with the ghouls in Sherburn and now she searched her memory for the lessons Lydia had taught her, found them waiting in her blood.

‘Well?’ the ghoul proceeded, ‘It would be so much more entertaining if one of you was able to put up a fight,’ and without warning he jabbed the emerald into Charity’s abdomen, once and quickly, so that as he withdrew a tell tale spiral of green smoke twisted out from the burnt patch in his waistcoat. Will staggered back, her grasp of him too weak to hold him upright, and collapsed on his hands and knees. The wolves keened with interest.

‘If it is a fight you are wanting,’ Elsie said, ‘You should be aware than there are more of us here than meet the eye.’

She looked down at the amulet of the Red Sun and remembered what the Star had said about the Three, the Sun and Moon and Star. Ancient power, channelled through a triumvirate, it was a devil to coax out of its lair, and their stars had taken millenia to align, but once it was woken it would be more powerful than anything a single necromancer could wield. Elsie was suddenly sure of it and Elsie called upon it now. She felt Will pull himself upwards with his cane and smiled at the power she felt growing between them,, but when she looked in his direction he was bent over; clutching the silver cap until the leather of his gloves almost split with the pressure.

‘I see two weary travellers,’ Adato said, ‘Who contain exalted traces of the Old Gods, your power is buried in the chambers of this temple, deep to the rock and out of your reach. You are useless to me, weak and helpless,’ he reached out and the claw that passed for his hand hovered over Elsie’s belly. ‘But here, there is true power in its infancy, my Star, come home at last, and soon to be reborn.’

‘I won’t let you take her,’ Will said through a haze of grief. ‘Not again,’ and Elsie realised he was thinking of the girl in the temple even now, still aching to put right the past. He pulled back his shoulders slightly and aimed the pistol once again, but there were tearstains on his cheeks now, freezing where they fell. Lydia, Sandy, Ahmes, he had failed them all and he clung to life to avenge their losses. Well she must help him now as he had once helped her. Elsie saw that his amulet was glowing softly and felt the heat from the Red Sun at her chest. Protector and Protected, their roles were now the same, both in danger, both defending the other to the bitter brutal end.

Somewhere out in the fog the sea washed softly back and forth with the slow rush and hiss of the tide. The light grew stronger, strong enough the mirror of it glowed deep in Adato’s eyes.

‘I will end you for what you did to Lydia,’ Will said, voice rough, ‘And to the children, all those children whose innocence you took, whose lives you ended. It may take all of me to do it, but do not underestimate my determination. They will all be avenged and I will die before your evil is given wings again.’

‘You cannot battle magic with guns,’ Adato said with a sense of bemusement. He turned away as thought to ready himself but there was no urgency or fear about his movements. ‘You will be defeated. The source of my power is older than time, but I see you are decided and would fight. ’

As they watched they saw Adato morph again so that the few human features he had chosen to sport crumbled into nothing. His face vanished, replaced only with a blackened skull and glittering deep set eyes. He replaced his beaked mask, carved with plants of deadly poison and decked in silver filigree, and swept his robes aside with the length of his golden staff. Like his face the body beneath seemed to have dissolved into a cloud, no bones or flesh hidden beneath the length of his dress, just a void into which all light vanished.

‘We have squandered enough time, now, as you so rightly say, we end it,’ Adato said, and something glinted at his throat. As Will braced himself for the battle ahead, Elsie’s eyes trained upon it. Something small and symmetrical yet delicate. Something suspended like a necklace. Like a charm.

Like an Amulet. 

The Red Sun was lit about Elsie’s throat but their enemy paid no heed. The Red Moon followed palely but still the necromancer failed to see their power. Adato lifted his staff and it came cracking down onto the centre of the clearing, green sparks flying. Around them the wolves obeyed his order and leapt towards their quarry. Will and Elsie felt the tremors through the rock charge their legs, weight them with lead and pin them as they had been at the Harvest, unable to move, unable to run. A feeling familiar yet different, because this time she had learned.

Elsie could feel Will fighting the power but within a moment the green serpentine magics had wound themselves about his legs as they had Elsie’s, and were progressing quickly up into their bodies, binding their chests, their life’s breaths gasping against the force of the enchantment. Still Elsie waited, her faith unshaken, for the magic was not yet ready. Adato was laughing, the wolves seizing mouthfuls of Elsie’s skirts and tearing, dragging their fangs through the wool of Will’s coattails as he fought them with his cane.

Then Elsie felt it, an explosion of Red Sun firing through her body as it had the day she had run from the cottage to forge her own path. Then it had been bright and strong but outwith her command. It killed without permission, filled her with fear of what she had become, ruled over her as she fled from those that would take its power, but not today. Today she called upon it and let it fly.

A crack like thunder. A shattering brilliance swirling around the granite clearing, too bright to see, the flare of the sun suspending the wolves about them in silence and in time. The snow which had been falling now sparkled in the light unmoving and all around them nothing stirred. Adato was paralysed in the reflection of his own dark magics made brilliant by the Sun. The danger they faced turned into a sculpture.

But it would not last.

‘His gem!’ Elsie called, ‘At his throat!’

But Will had other objectives. He whipped round in confusion in the midst of the wolves, who until a moment before were hell bent on destroying him, and stared at Adato. He was as frozen as the rest, one hand extended with the staff. It’s emerald shining and around it there were frozen wisps of the evil magic he was about to unleash; a spell set to remove the Star from Elsie’s body and feed upon its power. Will rushed to it with a mind to destroy it no matter the consequences for himself, but now the Star itself was emerging from the darkness into the clearing the Sun had lit for it, as though a thousand years of anger was ready to be put to use in its fight to go home. It went straight to Adato, and in a blink vanished into the staff.

Elsie screamed, horrified, but as fast as she let out her cry the emerald jewel erupted, splintering across the snow like fallen pine and the Star re-emerged floating above Adato, its starlit spindles rotating slowly, brighter than Elsie had ever seen. The thing at Adato’s throat sparkled in its rays fit to be taken from his body.

‘Will, his gem! Hurry!’

Without hesitation Will grabbed both sides of the necklace from which the gem was suspended and yanked hard. It fell away from the ghoul, its magics never designed for evil and it colour immediately beginning to alter.

‘Will! I don’t know how long this spell will last,’ Elsie warned shrilly, as the bright light from the Red Sun flickered about her and the wolves trapped by her magic began slowly to move.

‘Good Lord!’ Will said, his eyes wide, ‘It’s the star, the star Ahmes wore about her neck, the one we used as a key for our escape. But look at it, its…. Ugh!’ Will jumped and almost dropped the necklace.

At first glance it was a star shape carved in obsidian or onyx, heavy, dense and black but polished as to catch the light. Will touched it carefully but when he did some of that darkness came away. Holding it by its silver chain Will and Elsie watched in horror as a black sludge began to drip from the amulet, landing on the crisp snow beneath, staining everything it touch. Will jerked and fumbled it, cursing as a droplet landed on his hand.

‘Ah! It burns!’

‘Will, look!’

He glanced up at the circle of wolves, their stolen souls leaving their bodies like golden mist as quickly as the star amulet rid itself of evil. Will turned to Adato, who was as frozen as the rest, his robe and mask collapsing around his disintegrating form, now that the source of his power was gone. Charity watched closely as his enemy turned to dust and blackened petals, like paper crisp and burned, carried by the breeze, and yet there was a sense that the necromancer’s bodily demise was not forever, his soul sold long ago to defy the laws of nature.

Light overtook darkness as Elsie and Will stood together. In the circular clearing by the Temple Gates, the amulet’s sunlight lit the three of them as they waited for the last of their enemies to vanish into mist. Elsie watched the Star float to where Adato’s stolen jewel lay in the snow. It was just as Elsie had seen it in the visions in the scrying pool and it was clear the star remembered. So many years it had represented the being, borne for centuries by so many young priestesses whose life force the Star burned through. The Star hovered briefly over the beautiful gold and silver emblem and then touched it with the spindles of its magic, tentatively as though afraid of what the contact would reveal. When it did not burn or shock it pressed its shimmering light firmly, injecting a warmth which melted the snow all about it, and forced away the last of Adato’s darkness.

Trust was still an issue which wrangled within Elsie’s mind and body but she felt the Star’s confusion, the hint of grief in its consciousness, the churn of human memories that it had gathered over centuries; a sense of loss and of a coming ending, soon to accompanied by a sense of hope for new beginnings. After a moment of reflection it left the jewel behind and came back to her, subdued, and when it had again taken up its place in the heart of her, she recognised that it sought comfort like a child.

As the Star hid within her, Will stooped with some difficulty and picked up the new amulet. He let it sparkle in the glow of the Red Sun just as the spell was fading and nightfall returned. It twirled on its chain, performing a slow dance.

‘I suspect this will come in useful,’ he said, ‘Once a key, always a key, and a key is always a trinket or a gem,’ his thoughts looked far away as he slipped it in his pocket close to where Adato had wounded him again. He flinched and Elsie looked at him in concern. ‘I’m dandy,’ he said looking absolutely bedraggled, ‘Nothing to worry about. What’s a couple more holes in the old torso, eh?’

‘Will…’ 

‘Besides we’re here, now,’ he exhaled sharply and forced himself to look towards the Temple. Gathering his wayward top hat once again, straightening his cravat, Charity walked up to the gates and rattled an enormous lock, peering at it in disappointment to find it had a relatively standard keyhole and nothing that looked like an amulet or staff might fit.

‘We just need to get in there and deal with whatever’s next and then we are home and dry, into the temple, quick ritual, Bob’s your uncle,’ he leaned on the cross bracket of the gate for a moment, breath pluming in the cold and letting out the constant stream of encouraging chatter he always fell back on when truly in dire straits.

‘We could take a break,’ Elsie said, looking about for somewhere they might sit a while, ‘I could try and heal that wound, it will need powerful magic but I am much more proficient now. It will do no harm to rest a moment and then….’

There was a shot as loud as dynamite, and Elsie spun to see Will standing by the gates, pistol smoking and the lock hanging off. He grinned at her, giddy and slightly unsteady on his feet.

‘Can’t fight magic with guns, eh? But we can rely on one to open a stubborn gate!’

‘Will,’

‘Hmm?’

Elsie nodded to the wall in the shadows to left of the gate, where the mountainside met the granite and where after centuries of ill weather a rockfall had left a gap just wide enough for a person to walk through. Will’s smile faltered slightly, and he sheepishly pocketed the pistol again.

‘Right, well, that’s all very well, but a chap likes to make an entrance. Good for the confidence! Let them know we’re coming,’ and he turned back to the lock and aimed a boot just below it, forcing the old gates open with a kick that made him grunt in pain.

‘I think something here has noticed us already,’ Elsie said as she watched the grounds about the Temple of the Red Sun start to stir through the gate. ‘Something is moving, I can hear it, can’t you?’

Will turned on his heel, the tails of his coat spreading around him and looked out across the small external space about the Temple. There the natural dark rock of the mountainside had been pierced by a huge monolith of red granite. At the far end of the high walled space Elsie could see that the Temple had be at least in part carved out of the rock and granite both, but before they could reach their towering goal with its enormous sun emblem, they had to traverse a broad path through an old burial site. In the encroaching dark they could see movement on the ground beneath the fog, like the surf upon the waves.

Will took Elsie’s hand in his left and armed himself with the sword cane in the right. They took a few steps forward and paused, Will examining the ground at his feet with a furrowed brow.

‘What is it?’

‘Its not usual to have so much loose soil atop a mountain, much less atop granite and bare black rock. Nothing grows here, nothing lives and yet, dirt, everywhere, look here under the snow,’ he prodded at the rich brown soil with a boot.

‘For what purpose?’ Elsie said.

‘For what purpose do evil things bring dirt to their lairs. To bury things,’ Will said. ‘We probably shouldn’t linger in case they decide to wake up.’

‘ _They?’_

‘Whatever the Order buried here for safe keepings or emergencies,’ Will said straightening.

‘Emergencies such as?’

‘Uninvited guests, like you and I,’ Will said.

‘Let’s just get to the temple,’ Elsie said pulling her cape about her. ‘That pistol shot has likely woken the dead,’ she added. Will looked affronted as she peered out into the fog and gloom, the slithering clicking sounds she had picked up on muffled in the mist. ‘Can’t you hear that, Will?’ she insisted, ‘It sounds like… like…’

Elsie screamed as the hand grasped her ankle and yanked so that she toppled down into the soil Will had been examining.

‘Will!’

‘Good Lord! Hang on!’

The hand had no flesh, the bones of its fingers digging into her skin, its strength phenomenal. Elsie kicked out hard, once, then twice with vain hope of making any difference, but she was surprised when the resistance was so little. Its grip as tight as ever, she had succeeded in pulling the hand from the ground entirely, only to discover its bones ended at a missing elbow, and truth of its disembodied but seeming living state made her squeal again. Will dived onto the thing, securing its thumb with his gloved hand and wrenching until Elsie was free of it. He hurled it into the fog with a bony clatter and doubled down on the patch of soil Elsie was splayed across.

‘Have at you!’ he challenged, ‘Come on, where’s the rest of you?’

Elsie looked about her, the sound of movement infuriating her without a natural cause, and at last, squinting at the edge of visibility she found her answer and softly called Will’s attention. ‘Look, Will, look! What in heaven are they?’

‘No thing from any heaven I know,’ Will said as helped her up and took a turn at watching as hundreds of slithering clicking bones made their way about the courtyard of the temple. Hands with no arms, toes and legs dislocated from hips, spines twisted and broken bending backward like snakes, and all crawling blindly over one another. The longer they watched the more Elsie discovered the broken pieces seemed to have a sense of purpose.

‘Are they…?’

‘Trying to reassemble themselves?’ Will said wiping a worrying sweat from his brow, ‘I think so. Let’s hope they don’t manage any time soon. Rather a lot of them if they decide to form an army.’

Elsie looked at him in alarm.

‘These things usually do,’ he pointed out.

‘What are they?’ Elsie gasped in disbelief as a skull propelled itself by the hinge of its jaw across the path.

‘Remember the wolves that dug the graves, ‘Will said, ‘These must be the graves. Their contents torn apart and strewn across this burial place, disturbed and wandering broken bodies to match their broken souls.’

Elsie shuddered. ‘But those poor people did nothing wrong, how are their bodies to be found this way so restless with possession?’

‘I’d hazard this place is soaked with powerful magic, it rubs off whether you want it or not. Come on,’ Will said, ‘Lets get moving, head down, keep a look out, try not to stand on anybody.’

They pushed on, picking their way carefully and trying their best to stay upon the granite track between the active graves. Every now and then a stray hand or jaw would wend its way across their path on its blinded quest and Will would halt Elsie with a touch to let the thing go by. Some things wound their way in circles while others tried to dig down into the ground for covered pieces of themselves. For the most part the pieces ignored the living, busy with their search. Some dragged artifacts to the surface, jewellery or armour, whatever riches it’s owner had been buried with, others vanished into coffins far beneath the soil.

At last Will and Elsie reached the steps into the Temple and there they hesitated for a moment to glance back across the strange courtyard. A skull attached to a writhing spine, was struggling to drag a leg bone back to wherever it had once been buried.

‘If I did not already know that the Order was a cursed human construct, bent on controlling a power that was not theirs to control,’ Elsie said, ‘I think I would detect something wrong with this place upon arrival.’

Despite his pain Will snorted. ‘What gave it away?’ he asked in good humour.

Elsie turned to the door. ’Are you ready?’ she asked.

‘Absolutely!’ he declared and failed to meet her eye.

‘What will we find in there?’

‘A good number of undead,’ Will speculated, ‘A powerful high priestess, perhaps her acolytes and cronies, and somewhere there is a forge, but beyond those details I could not even guess. The Order of the Red Sun was built to keep people like you and I in the dark when it came to its true purpose, and it has managed that well. The Arcana and every word within it are worthless as are all Lydia’s teachings. What lies inside these doors will not be the Order we found in the Dead Halls; it will be the Order which bound us, cursed us and forced us apart while the Star was trapped thousands of miles away.’

‘It will not appreciate the rules that we have broken,’ Elsie said, ’Or those we wish to break now to escape.’

‘No,’ Will said with a grim tone, ‘We had better hope that the Star was right, that as a Three we can take on the High Priestess and win. If we fail we hand ourselves and the Star over to those that would keep us bound forever, or worse. All that power, pure and undiluted at their fingertips. Adato may be defeated for now but there are always others like him, witing to claim a throne of power. It is unthinkable.’ He turned and eyed the door critically, challenging it to reveal how it might open.

Elsie squeezed his hand and then let go, looked up at his tired but earnest face so focused on his task. Between them the Star emerged at last, its helpful light falling across the door as Will put his shoulder to its weight and heaved for nothing. The door stayed firm. He bent and caught his breath and Elsie examined the patterns on its surface.

Solid silver, piped in gold, sculpted symbols of the Sun, decorated in red crystal. Elsie recognised the style from her amulet and the sight made her stomach clench. All the years women like her had believed the legends, and never known the truth; now it was here right before her. As Will rested from a second effort she noticed the semi sphere of a flame red granite sun right at the centre of the door. On instinct she placed a hand over it and with a gentle wisp of magic in the place of pure brute force, the sphere clicked down into place.

The doors swung open and Will straightened beside her to take in the view, the Star drifting ahead to provide a source of light in a chamber long neglected.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I must admit I was not expecting that.’


	41. Chapter 41

The room was large and made a perfect circle resting some twenty foot below them. A gantry way of rickety wooden slats held with rope led down to its centre from the level upon which they stood. Around the walls at both heights Elsie could see dormant scrying pools, the ones on the upper level like those she had seen Lydia use at the Dead Hall, horizontal basins of enchanted water. Those below stood upright like mirrors, the magic within holding the water against gravity. All emitted a pale grey light, the only source in the room to be found, but for the Star. In the silence all looked peaceful and as the door slid shut behind them the thud of its closure echoed off the ornate dome of the ceiling.

Elsie bent her head back to see the paintings, the decorative celestial bodies and the violent portraits of women enchained. The style was medieval but in places she could see older depictions the theme of which was worship not imprisonment. Women in red gowns sewn with gold, a veil over their faces and the Red Sun at their throats. Men in shadow with weapons drawn to watch over their charge; the Red Moon calling to them wherever they might be, leading them with golden footsteps to the place of their sacrifice for a girl who would never know their name.

Will nodded across the gangway, ‘What we are looking for will be down there,’ he said.

‘What _are_ we looking for, exactly?’ Elsie asked but Will, having no answer, took her hand in its stead.

‘Be a little careful old girl, some of this wood is as old as the Ark.’ He tested the first plank with his weight and satisfied that the creaking flaking wood was not about to give way took another step before towing Elsie out onto the bridge. Instinctively she put her hand out for the rope, the movement causing the whole thing to swing uncertainly over the drop to the inner circle. Her heart hammered, here hands shook.

‘One step at a time,’ Will reassured, taking his next step backwards to lead her safely, never taking his eyes from her. Elsie grabbed the opposite rope so that she had many points of contact as possible. She glared at Will who offered her another cheerful smile. ‘There you go, lightly does it, better now than in a few months time, you know, when you have er… expanded somewhat,’ he said with a teasing wink.

‘Excuse me?’ Elsie replied with a frisson of annoyance that drove her forward three slats on its own.

‘Just an observation, dear,’ Will said, continuing with his plan, until Elsie realised they had reached the bottom with no harm done while she had been too annoyed to be concerned. Will grinned at her and moved into the centre of the circle.

In this lower segment the upright pools were attached to the old stone walls, but at the northern compass point there was what appeared to be a sarcophagus and behind that, in a semi circle of stone carved from the rock of the mountain side, some form of ceremonial table or altar. A mural covered the far curved wall, and the art there was even older than any Elsie had spotted since they had entered. It was different from the rest of the Sun depictions in that it contained not only the Moon but also the Star, the only trace of the being she had ever seen outside of Abyssinia.

‘There,’ she breathed.

‘Hmm?’

‘What we are looking for,’ and she felt the Star wake again within her. ‘The only acknowledgment from the Order that the Star ever existed.’

‘Just a moment,’ Will said distractedly. Beside her she let him move away, his steps quiet, to stand before one of the scrying pools.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

Will guddled in a pocket and pulled out the crystal he had taken from the murdered priestess in the last Dead Hall they had visited.

‘It won’t take a moment,’ he said untangling its leather strap, ‘I just thought perhaps, well it’s connected isn’t it, they all are…’

‘What are you talking about?’

Will looked up eyes large and lost with vulnerability he did nothing to hide. He looked at her raw with hope. ‘Lydia,’ he said, ‘If I can get this work, well…. Then I’ll know won’t I? One way or the other, what has happened to her. It won’t take a moment and I..’ his voice broke slightly. ‘Just a moment,’ he pleaded.

‘Will I don’t think you ought to, these pools are not are own but the Order’s, it might be dangerous.’

‘Please,’ he cut in and she found herself nodding, wishing him the sense of peace he craved, one way or another, and praying that Adato’s words had been lies.

Elsie stood by his side and looked into the hazy mirrored surface, seeing the faintest reflection of herself and of Will, faint as worn carvings but for the shine of their amulets and the glow that made itself known at Elsie’s belly.

‘A pool like this will always show a source of magical power,’ Will said nodding to where hr eyes were fixed upon her child. Will held the crystal aloft. ‘I like to think it would also tell the truth,’ he added swallowing.

‘Do you know what you are doing with that?’ Elsie asked. ‘Maybe I should, I mean, I’m familiar with the magics I might be able to direct it better or…’

‘She is _my_ sister,’ Will said with an edge to his tone. ‘And if she is lost the blame lands firmly at my door. I need to do this.’

Elsie waited quietly, the enchanted waters of the pool rippling softly, shadows flitting under its surface, as the distant sounds of voices lost within escaped like bubbles. Will let the crystal swing and closed his eyes. ‘Please,’ she heard him say.

The wind about the Temple picked up, its howls resembling the cries of animals more than a simple breeze.

‘Will something is happening!’

He looked up sharply in time for the interior of a Dead Hall to come into focus in the pool. It had been destroyed as they knew the others to have been and its interior smouldered still. The pair looked hard, but though the architecture looked familiar with its dome and pillars the inside was clearly not Lydia’s homely domain, even in its destruction they would have known her mark upon the place. Will’s shoulders sagged at the sight of the empty Hall.

‘Are they each linked to a Dead Hall?’ Elsie asked walking a few paces on to the next pool in line. ‘Lydia never mentioned anything like this. It must be a way of calling all the Priestesses to the Temple in times of need or perhaps when a new Protected is due to waken. I say perhaps,’ she added, ‘Everything is still a mystery, the harder we chase the answers the more…’

There was a roar from the spot where Will was standing and Elsie screamed. Through the body of the pool a creature burned and broken was crawling, its hands grasping Will’s arm as anchorage. Its face was torn, its teeth exposed and its eyes without all colour, white and glazed. Will wrestled it desperately, wrenching the scorched arm from its socket and grasping the thing by its throat.

‘Elsie! Be ready! Close the pool on my command!’

‘Will there are others!’ Elsie spun to find a litany of pools were opening, the flicker of movement along the lowest line of mirrors and above them, in the balcony of the circular room she could see the hiss and pop of water bubbling, of hands and arms and blackened faces slithering free.

Will heaved and the corpse he battled struggled with every rotten sinew to be free of the pool, to enter the Temple and defile its consecrated land. As they fought Elsie saw a crystal about the creatures’ necks. Bile hit her throat at the knowledge that these things had once been a person, an acolyte in some unknown Hall and that now between them she and Will would seal their fate. The Sun and Moon they must have worshipped all their lives now tore apart their bodies and silenced their angry souls.

But there was no time for sentiment or regret, the temple was alive with the dead creeping their way closer, bloodied, burned and mutilated limbs carrying them forth to reach their goal. Blind eyes seeking Elsie in the grey of the pools and lipless mouths opening in a snarl. Will beat one back but another was upon him from behind. Two more dropped down from the gallery above, friable bones smashing as they landed twisted and decayed, flesh shredding on the rock beneath as they dragged themselves along.

‘Elsie!’ Will called as he swung with his sword decapitating one of the creatures. He staggered back into the centre of the circle, the walls alive with the undead. ‘I can’t fight them all,’ he panted, ‘There’s too many,’ he jabbed at another, removed an arm, ‘A little magical back up if you don’t mind! Quick as you like!’

Elsie focused as Lydia had taught her and the Red Sun lit up brightly at her neck. She was prepared, she had learned the divination of magic, she was the heart of the Order, the True Order of the Three and she could halt this frenzy. The power gathered in both hands, she opened her eyes and she froze.

Will was engaged in combat at one open scrying pool, but behind him another was birthing the undead. The thing within it was emerging from the burned out crypt within a familiar Dead Hall, face blistered, eyes white and sightless, the colour of soot about its lips, its final suffocating breath captured in its skin. Its face was not completely obscured by injury and nor was its torso. Though its bodice had ripped it was still clear to see, above its heavy skirts and apron, that at its breast lay a scrying crystal, the same which had once been used to teach Elsie to divine.

The thing within the pool had once been Lydia, and Elsie decided in that moment it was not a sight that Will should see. That she was gone was bad enough but he did not need to fight its lifeless body, take his sisters dead face unto his nightmares. Elsie lifted her hand to seal the pool and cast the creature back into darkness, and the magic was ready to fly at her command when a tiny hand poked through the bottom of the pool, followed by another seeking purchase, followed by a face. Elsie’s certainty left her, and she screamed.

Will turned on the spot, his face turning white as a corpse as Lydia grasped for him with blackened hands and a hungry maniacal expression. Will stumbled and dodged away, utterly stricken, his gaze dropping to where Sandy crawled jerkily in her weak and broken body, the determination of the dead fuelling her as she tried to tear herself from the pool. Will stopped all attack and stood facing their bleached eyes while around him and Elsie more of the creatures were emerging, closing in, stretching for them. Time was running out. Lydia’s hand brushed the lapel upon his coat as she staggered forward and Elsie saw Will lift his sword automatically, his expression wavering.

Elsie raised a hand, the reanimated cadaver of Will’s sister between them.

‘Will! Hurry!’ Elsie cried and Lydia’s head twitched at the sound of her voice, her body rotating slowly so that it might follow it. For a second her blank eyes met Elsie’s, no light, no recognition, nothing human left at all.

‘Will!’

He stood helpless for a beat and in that moment Elsie heard only the intake of his breath, the shudder as it left him and the cry as he lunged forward shouldering the thing that had once been his sister back towards the pool, its clumsy body staggering. It grasped the edge of the scrying pool’s frame as Will lifted the sword and drove metal through its chest.

Elsie released the magic, the force of it as much as she could muster. The pool turned to glass and shattered with such force that it split and refracted the spell, destroying every scrying pool around them, the undead of the Dead Halls screaming in the light of the Red Sun as they shrivelled and retreated.

In the chaos all about them, in the tumult of wanton cries and flailing limbs, there was a moment captured in silence. Will, his sword driven to its hilt into his sister’s heart, and Lydia, the blank eyes she had trained blindly upon her brother, turning blue as the sunlit sky. She stared at him in shock, made to speak his name, and as Will hurried to remove the blade, she was taken from him. The magic Elsie used releasing her, freeing her from the private hell Adato’s ghouls had made.

‘Lyds… No! _No_!’ Will threw himself against the shattered pool, the glass slicing through his gloves as easily as butter, the blood from his hands smearing the frame as he fought to somehow push his way through the lost dimension. ‘No! Come back! Please come back!’

He beat upon it oblivious to the chaos all about him ebbing finally away, of the pain of lost generations of priestesses, their bodies sealed within their tombs, their spirits free. Will dropped to his knees and rested his head against the centre of the broken pool, his sword trailing by his side and his breath coming in staccato.

‘What did you do?’ he asked Elsie. ‘Lydia,’ he said, ‘It was _Lydia_ and… and Sandy,’ his voice broke and a sob wracked him as he fought to gain control.’ How could you? They needed us they… how could you…’ Elsie went to him and crouched by him, held him in her arms.

‘Yes, yes, it was them, what remained of them,’ Elsie said gently. She felt Will shake in her embrace. ‘But they were tormented Will, trapped the way they were, held in their places by death, by a curse, by Adato when he burned the Dead Halls. They had to be released, don’t you see? We could not save them, but we could free them from their purgatory. I loved them too, Will, and that is why I could not let them suffer.’

‘She will not have had her rites,’ Will said his sobs slowing, ‘she tended the dead, but at the end no-one tended her. Adato, he just… he…killed her and left her to wander. He killed Sandy, he killed a _child_ , Elsie. He condemned an innocent soul.’

‘Shh, he is condemned now, himself,’ she said. ‘That must be your vengeance.’

‘It isn’t enough, it will never be enough.’

Will extracted himself, standing to wipe his cheeks with the back of a hand, and turned away, his frame silhouetted by the last of the pale light from the dying pools. Elsie heard him take a shaky breath, his hands upon his hips. Another minute and he checked his pistol, swiped the moisture from his nose, loaded ammunition. Finally, Will cleared his throat.

‘Right,’ he said, ‘You said you’d found a likely looking spot for whatever comes next, back there? Behind that enormous coffin?’

‘Y-yes, but Will, slow down…’ Elsie said uncertain if they should be progressing with Will so shaken, but she was not quick enough to question it for as the thought entered her mind she saw Will stride open to the ornate sarcophagus and bang both hands hard on its wooden lid, his palms leaving bloodied prints upon the surface. Elsie jumped at the echoing hollow sound and took an instinctive step back.

‘High priestess,’ he said.

Elsie’s eyes widened, ‘She’s dead?’

‘Everyone else is dead,’ he said flatly, ‘Adato’s minions, the creatures in the Dead Halls, all the Priestesses…’

‘My grandmother!’ Elsie said. ‘My grandmothers lands, you said. The temple was in my grand mothers lands.’

‘Then I must be the bearer of bad news,’ Will said. ‘Nothing lives here, Elsie, nothing, can’t you feel it? Everything is lost…’ he paused and steadied his voice, refocused his attention on the sarcophagus.

‘Big fancy coffin in here, got to be the head of the Order, or whatever is left of her, keep an eye out in case she decides to join us,’ he said and let his eyes scan the wall behind, the symbols Elsie had seen earlier. Will pursed his lips, ‘These are interesting, the Star gets a mention for starters, not seen it in any previous art have you? It does look rather older than the rest too.’ He strode over to the wall which curved around the back of the chamber, and ran a hand over the painted engravings. ‘No obvious way in,’ he commented, ‘No switches or buttons, no keyholes, just your common all garden wall.’

He returned disappointed to the sarcophagus. Stood by it with hands on hips and took a stilted breath. He was bleeding. From his hands, from the wounds on his abdomen, from a cut upon his forehead left by one of the Undead. His breathing sounded wet and laboured, somehow insufficient and his posture poised and painful. The excitement and fear had given him a burst of strength but Elsie could see him fading. The burst would not last long.

‘Are you all right Will?’ Elsie asked approaching him.

‘Absolutely, tickety boo.’ And he swiped a hand across his brow, tired and aching, with such a look of fatigue and grief about his eyes he was almost unrecognisable as the Will Charity she had met just months ago. ‘Let’s just focus on the job at hand, shall we, hmm?’ He coughed and began examining the lid of the coffin before him.

‘Sometimes the best places to hide something are with the dead themselves,’ he explained and shoved the tip of his sword between the lid and the body of the thing. Elsie squealed in protest and then with a heave Will forced the sarcophagus open, the lid lifting and sliding with a bang onto the stone floor. Elsie raised her hands in preparation, her fingers already tingling with light and then she saw that Will was bent over the thing looking more bewildered than afraid.

‘No body,’ he said.

‘What?’ she joined him.

‘No body,’ he said again straightening and peering at the empty oblong space before them. No body, but equally no sign there had ever been one, just a wood lined space within the cut stone of the outer sarcophagus. No linens, no jewels, no anything to suggest anyone had ever been buried there.

‘No priestess,’ Elsie said. ‘Now what? We have come all this way, fended off a necromancer and his undead wolves, survived what this chamber sent to us…’

She saw Will swallow at the mention of their battle.

‘Will we cannot stop here. We have to find a way to rid ourselves of the Curse and to set the Star free.’

Will rubbed a hand across his brow. ‘Ah yes, the Star, how I wish to rid ourselves of that.’

‘It made us a promise, Will, it will help us if we can help it. Undo the damage that it has done.’

‘For it to do that,’ Will said, ‘It would have to admit to the damage in the first place.’ He stood slumped over the coffin, bearing the weight on his painful hands as he looked down onto the wood slats that made the lining. Elsie saw his gaze become unfocused, a note of defeat enter his posture.

‘It is not the Star that tortured Ahmes,’ she said, ‘I can’t explain it, but it has changed, lived within a person for so long that it has absorbed the best of that man’s qualities. That man is you Will and it wishes to make amends.’

Will said nothing. His tolerance of the Star poor at the best of times.

‘We have come this far,’ Elsie said, ‘I won’t let you give up now,’ and on tiptoe she began examining the interior of the sarcophagus.

‘What are you doing?’

‘There is but one entrance,’ Elsie said, ‘And we came here by it. The only other way in or out were the pools and we destroyed them. Whatever, whoever heads this order must be here somewhere, alive or dead. There is a forge, there have been rituals held here for thousands of years, there has to be something we are missing, a door way or…’ her fingers caught on something at the near side off the box, ‘… a trapdoor.’

The floor of the coffin swung open and a set of spiral stairs in ancient wood came into view, disappeared down into the pitch dark far below.

‘Good Lord!’ Will said, a genuine smile crossing his face, ‘How did you do that?’

‘There was a draft.’

Will looked at her proudly, ‘Well come on then!’ he hopped up into the box and lowered himself down onto the first step, slowly leading Elsie down with him. The dark closed in quickly, and she became aware that the walls were damp, freezing water running down over black rock. The wood under their feet creaked in warning lest its rot give way and with each passing step Elsie became more aware of a high squeaking sound.

‘Will, I think those are…’

There was a glare of light and the Star suddenly emerged brighter than before. Both Will and Elsie had to shield their eyes a moment before they could look down at the sound.

‘Ugh!’ Elsie exclaimed.

‘Rather a lot of them,’ Will commented as the ground around the base of the steps undulated with rats. As they watched every now and again a rat with particular courage tried to scrabble up onto the stairs but fell backwards again from the effort and was immediately dived upon by its companions. ‘Hungry too. Must be running out of things to eat.’ He glanced about and found the exit, a few wooden steps up from the basin of rats, leading on to another gloomy space. Will’s eyes went back and forth between the two sets of steps.’

‘I can’t say I fancy picking our way through them, there must be hundreds, slithering about, gnawing on one another’s tails and so on.

Elsie felt a little sick and then she saw the Star dive lower, right down into the pit of rodents, its light absolutely blinding. The rats let out squeals of discomfort and began scrambling over one another to try and get away. The Star settled at the base of the spiral staircase and waited patiently keeping open the path which it had made..

‘I think it wants us to follow,’ Elsie said.


	42. Chapter 42

Once out of the pit, the corridors were relatively simple to traverse. Made of the same dark rock as the stairwell, here there was less dampness and more of a sense that they had been undisturbed for centuries. Cobwebs filled corners but no flies were caught within. No torches filled the rusted brackets on the walls.

To Elsie’s surprised there was no indication at all of the significance of the building. No more artwork, no sculpture or carving, no scrying pools or evidence of magic. All was gloomy. Heavy stone constructs where no person might live comfortably at all, a crypt with no bodies. Her vision of the Great Temple as a bright, busy building filled with gold and crimson, luxury and decadence, was utterly crushed. Was this not the place which was to be at the centre of a powerful Order for thousands of years? Where were the riches she had seen in Ahmes’ temple? Where were the acolytes with whom priestesses communicated in Dead Halls far and wide? But ah, Ahmes’ order had died off years before and Lydia had spoken of the empty Halls upon their path. The Star had been a prisoner of its own success and bringing prosperity to Abyssinia had only led to its imprisonment. Perhaps its prison cell was had been better furnished than what Elsie now encountered, but a prison cell it had still remained; the same could be said for the Order of the Red Sun.

Elise knew that for generations women like her had been used. By the Order, by people who craved power, by men who kept that power locked away. Will had described when they first met how many Protected were exalted as Queens, but treated as consorts. That any demonstration of their incredible abilities were to be quashed unless they were of particular use to those who held them. Her ancestors had been used as weapons ensuring the superiority of their Kings.

Perhaps like Ahmes’ Order people had grown frightened of the power the bearer of the Red Sun had at her fingertips. Her sacred rooms became a cell, her magic no longer worshiped but hidden and extorted. Protection, Healing, Long Life, Fertility, those were her blessings and those were her gifts. Gifts to be taken, never given. As Elsie proceeded through the passageways and tunnels, her heart ached for those she knew had lived and died within that dungeon, whose spirits she felt as she passed by. Whispering, reaching for her, praying for release. She turned and looked back, felt their eyes upon her in the dark, gazes glittering with the Star’s white beacon, following, following their descendent in her cautious footsteps.

The tunnel took a dip down, the air turning hot, the darkness more impenetrable. Ahead of Will the Star still led the way but its pace was slowed and wary and Elsie could see Will examining the walls as he moved, hands running over cracks and ancient fittings that once bore torches. He stepped a pace and beneath him something shifted. A bang, and a rack of ancient spears flew out before his face, plunging into the opposite wall and snapping from age and decay. A few yards on another pressure plate let fly a brace of arrows and Will forced Elsie to the ground, rolling her so he might take the blows. He panted atop of her, eyes squeezed shut as he groped down one side of his chest, snapped the missile at its thinnest point and pushed himself upright with a grunt, a wet cough in his lungs, and bloodstained spittle at his lips. Elsie reached for him in panic but he gently took her hand away, the only choice being to keep going before he no longer could.

The tunnel crawled on, littered with traps and while Will was savvy enough to most of them one or two, like the arrow, had found their way to his skin. He was slowing in his progress, seemed to favour his left leg. Elsie could hear his breathing in the choking underpassage, could see the sweat upon his brown when he turned to her, the Star by his shoulder watching all too carefully, its fear palpable. What became of it should Will not survive the ritual, its hope dashed by his death? Such was the question Will might ask of it, but Elsie felt the throb of another kind of dread that the ancient inhuman thing could not express.

A few more minutes and they appeared to reach a dead end, the wall smooth and unmarked but for three old torch brackets. Elsie waited as Will examined them his cough more frequent now, his hand clamped to his side in pain.

‘They are all triggers,’ he said, swiping his mouth with the back of his cuff, ‘Two of which I suspect will be boobytrapped and one will lead the way to our goal. Stand back, whatever they do will be sent my way.’

‘No, Will enough! Do not be so reckless! There must be some way of discerning which is which…’

There was a vast creak and from nowhere a gate swung around the small clearing, crashing into Will with a heavy thud. He had pinned himself by the torch handle, flattening himself in preparation, but the iron crushed him nonetheless, catching his nose which immediately began to gush with blood. Slowly the trap swung back around and vanished back into the dark while Will slumped, winded and gasping, pinching his nose high at the bridge.

‘Not that one,’ he said in a strangled tone.

‘Will, wait!’

But Charity was in a hurry, his strength leaving him and time ticking down mercilessly. He skipped the second torch and went straight to the third while Elsie braced herself and the Star provided light. She saw Will grit his teeth, pearl white stained in crimson, as he pulled on the lever system and then there was a low grumble. Stone moved deep within rock and a tall oval shape began to drop down the wall slowly, revealing a room behind it. The Star dashed in ahead and brightened the scene suddenly, forcefully as though daylight had spilled through the cracks in the ceiling. The whole high-ceilinged dome glowed golden and as Elsie and Will moved through the newly revealed door they could see that the roof was decorated with charts of silver constellations against a flaking midnight blue, the edges decorated in heavy gold trimmed curtains suspended some three or four yards high and draping down to the floor, coloured like the sunset in reds and oranges plums and gold.

The Star surveyed the chamber, floating rapidly around the outskirts of its circular shape, climbing high to the paintings, searching, but failing to find what it needed. Evidence of the unknown ritual to free its being and send it back to the heavens. Its ancient being had never borne witness to what had happened in the Celtic lands, its spirit bound in Abyssinian centuries before, so it hovered lost, seeking hidden clues. Elsie too was searching. She saw the space and the colours, but she also saw the details. The steps that led up from a central basin to two hidden areas behind the arras. She stood by a huge upright scrying pool, dormant and black and hunted for signs of magic, of a forge, of something that might bring the Curse to an end. Elsie waited for Will to catch up, her heart anxious as she witnessed how slow his pace had become now that they had reached the heart of the Temple, his left leg dragging and slick with blood.

Elsie bid him sit by the scrying pool and despite his protests found him strangely biddable. He took a seat on one of the semi-circle stone benches which surrounded it, looked deep under its surface as he waited, the great chamber silent all around them.

‘What do we do now?’ Elsie asked.

The Star, suspended between them, allowed its shape to unravel just a little, sent forth a spindle of light to touch the mirrored pool and on that contact liquid gold poured from the spot, forcing back the darkness, filling the scrying pool’s shape. Elsie saw Will push himself back from it, the heat from it incredible, the water in the pool evaporating instantly in jets of steam. In a minute the gold found its level, filled with slow bursting molten bubbles, more delicate than any man could ever make, rising and rupturing, splashing and settling back into what had become a forge filled with magic.

The Star floated back a pace and waited by Will, an urgency in its movements. ‘So far so good,’ he said. ‘One appropriately ceremonial room, one magical forge wherein I must assume our amulets were made.’

 _Reverse the ritual, undo the binding,_ _destroy the gems,_ the Star said in its cool disembodied voice, _Quickly, before the denizens of the Temple waken._

‘Denizens of the Temple,’ Will sighed, ‘I could do without meeting them.’

‘How do we reverse the ritual, where do we start?’ Elsie asked the Star, glancing about her for further evidence of the undead.

‘Yes how?’ Will commented, ‘Do we simply melt the amulets? Is there a ceremony, a set of magic words? We can’t reverse it, if we do not know how it was enacted in the first place? I suppose we should check the art upon the walls again, these things are usually transcribed, but I’m damned if I have the energy for reading today.’ His voice barely contained his irritation and when Elsie glanced at him she saw a spatter of blood upon the floor, dripping from his right hand side where the arrow pierced his ribs.

‘The _ritua_ l,’ he said again looking directly at the Star, ‘Come on! How did they manage to bind the Sun and Moon within our poor ancestors. Presumably we have to unbind them from within us, no? The amulets then? You aren’t being very helpful here,’ he snapped.

‘It doesn’t know,’ Elsie said, ‘The Star was not present, it had already been captured itself.’

Will cursed beneath his breath. ‘ Well, there’s nothing here on the walls that I can see, and the Arcana doesn’t reveal any of the important stuff. Are you sure you don't know?’ he asked the Star again, ‘Does anybody know?!’ he raised his voice until it bounced off the circular acoustics of the dome, but the Star remained silent.

‘Elsie,’ he said without meeting her eye, ‘I need you to do me a favour.’

Will took off his top hat and ran a hand through the damp curls of his hair, his face pinched and a tremor in his fingers as he tried to focus hard on the job at hand and will away the pain. Elsie watched him for a moment, noticing of all things, the fray of the black band about the brim as he picked it, his teeth biting into his bottom lip as he fought to control wave after wave of agony. The Will she knew would be up and investigating every possible means of completing their task, but she realised with a stab of anxiety that he simply couldn’t, that the pain was just too great, that his bleeding leg would not carry his weight nor propel him forward. He needed her to go and be his eyes.

‘Leave it to me,’ she said, kissing his cheek. He nodded and closed his eyes against the pain, his grip white upon his cane and his back rigid, holding himself just so as every muscle in him cramped.

Elsie began her circuit of the room, pacing the circumference with a ball of magic readied at one hand. She glanced back at the pool and saw the Star lingering by Will’s side in an uneasy bobbing motion, the tendrils of gold and silver light which it emitted reaching every now and then but never quite making contact with his face. He had his eyes tight shut, his body tensed, the pattern of blood at his feet growing ever larger and every now and then she saw his lips move, as if in conversation with the being he had carried all those years, the thing that had rendered him weak, that had stolen years from him, condemned him to age prematurely, to suffer the pain he was suffering now. He opened his eyes and watched it and as she looked she saw the light touch him gently on the shoulder, saw his posture ease a little. It was sorry, she realised, some twenty years too late.

Elsie felt her anger rise, her protectiveness demanding that she respond. She could go to him, she could try to heal the worst of it, but she knew that it would never enough, that the Star’s work could not be cured and Elsie could sense the finality as surely as the Star could, as surely as Will. The thing that waited just around the corner, that waited for every Protector there had ever been, was waiting for him now just out of sight. She had to end the Curse and demand that the Star keep its word and reverse the damage it had done, and for the promise of that Elsie kept on moving, as quickly as she could, to try and save the man who would give his life for her in a instant, who in being by her side already had.

Elsie drew back a curtain, and another, each revealed grey blank stone where she hoped for a mural or the carved instructions of an ancient civilisation. Another and another. The stone featureless and grey. She looked back toward the pool, to where Will had propped himself lopsidedly, where bloodstains seeped and grew. Another, another and she had reached the East side of the chamber, where the steps climbed from the basin and vanished behind the drapes. Half peering back to Will she withdrew the next curtain and she froze.

‘Will, Will!’ she cried in alarm, though she could not take her eyes from the body before her, the colours of its dress, the jewels upon its withered frame. ‘Will!’

‘Bit busy,’ he said in a strained voice.

‘Will there’s a …’ she started.

‘Ghost!’ his voice replied and despite her fear at her own discovery she looked quickly back to see him. Will was in combat, gripping the edge of the molten pool with one gloved hand while fending off a new enemy with the sword cane in his other. He was keeping himself upright only by holding on tight to the forge, pacing around it and using its shape as a shield the best he could.

The thing he fought was not an undead as had emerged from the Dead Hall scrying pools, but equally it did not live. Taller than Will it moved quickly, dipping in and out of sight, appearing to vanish entirely only to appear yards away or on a different side. It fought with a sword, but it was heavy and broad, and its shape was clad in armour from long ago. All of it transparent, all of it fading and flickering in and out of being, silver-toned but empty; its body was clear, and Elsie could see the far side of the chamber through its chest.

It attacked Will with real fleetness of movement, disembodied and agile. Will, panting from the heat of the pool, tried to place the boiling liquid between him and his enemy but the thing passed directly through. Will stabbed with his sword cane but the metal tip made no impact. The spirit only lifted its own sword and wielded it in a swift semi circle, a heavy blow falling at Will’s shoulder which had him shouting in pain, his knees buckling. Elsie raised her magic, sent it flying at the spectre only for it to pass again right through the man’s chest. Its head snapped up to her, the cold of its sight set upon her and in that moment she spotted the shape of an amulet about its neck, the spectre of the Red Moon that Will wore.

‘Will! He is a Protector, his amulet, look!’

It took a pace towards her, guided by her voice, only for Will to try attacking it from behind, failing in his quest to do it damage, but enough to refocus the thing back onto him.

‘Hurry then!’ Will shouted, ‘He won’t give up, Protectors never do!’ He ducked the man’s sword again and rolled painfully to one side of the pool where he tried in desperation to pull himself up once more. ‘His Protected must be nearby! He thinks we mean her harm!’

Elsie turned quickly back to her discovery in the hope of finding answers quickly. Motionless, decaying and ancient, Elsie knew it had been a woman once, a woman just like her and the knowledge made her insides cramp and tangle in fear, disgust and pity. It was dressed in the finery that Elsie had seen upon the walls in the upper chamber. Brilliant scarlet velvet, long trailing bell sleeves of a medieval style, an insert of golden material decorating the bodice and the underskirts of the robe. The clothes she wore alone must have cost the order dearly, the jewels too, brought from far off lands to suit their purpose. Offerings to a goddess upon earth, laid upon an altar of supplication and later turned against her; jewels charged with magic, trapping her like beautiful chains. How long had she been upon her throne? Buried in the darkness of the chamber the dress had lost none of its colour, its embroidery and tiny pearls as bright as the suns first rays, as bright as the Red Sun itself. How beautiful she must have been, the day when they had trapped her for eternity.

Elsie touched the Red Sun around her own neck and looked at the figure of the woman to see no amulet around hers. Elsie’s amulet had been passed down through generations but the source of the power, the thing that bound each woman remained with the body before Elsie, she could feel it in the air. The woman was the First, and the woman wore a crown, seated still upon her shrivelled head, the weight of it tipping her face forward so that it was hidden, the wisps of long white hair trapped under its edges. Will had told her when they met the Protected were once treated as Queens. 

Drawing closer Elsie could see its light and delicate construction in brilliant filigree gold, and that there was space for three gems at the front but that the settings were empty. Elsie looked quickly at the design and noted the settings on the left and right would fit the crystals in her amulet and Will’s but it would take time to pry the gems from their gold and silver settings. She looked back to where the fight with the Protector’s ghost progressed and was horrified to see that Will was on his back before the pool, his hands clutching the sword of the spirit who bore down with it horizontally across Will’s neck. Elsie screamed and grabbed the crown, turning to run to him and sent magic flying to his aid.

But something grabbed her wrist and pulled her back with unnatural strength. Elsie spun and screamed again as slowly, limbs cracking and paper thin skin tearing as it moved, the body of the woman leaned forward from her throne in her beautiful robes, white hair to her waist and skin pulled back into a gruesome leer. She moved as though in chains, as though she bore the weight of centuries, but in a moment Elsie saw that the fight had left her long ago. That she did not cling to Elsie to delay her but to advise. As soon as Elsie turned to her she felt her grip loosen, the tips of her dead nails leaving crescents in Elsie’s living skin. Its eyes lit on her throat and the creature gasped to see the Red Sun, a dry sound like the crunch of fallen leaves. She turned her face up to Elsie’s horrified countenance in supplication, her disintegrating body pleading for her aid, the light in her eyes dim but shining.

Her eyes. They were not white as those belonging to the dead, nor empty but for evil as Adato’s slaves. The woman’s eyes though aged were as green as Elsie’s own.

She was alive. Elsie held a hand to her mouth in horror at the woman’s fate as her dry tongue and wasted throat began to speak.

‘The priests are gone,’ the woman said in a voice made from a thousand lonely winters, ‘No acolytes serve the temple now, but I wear the chains they made me long ago. Long life is my blessing, keeps me captive, and his duty to my life still keeps him near. Death eludes me and he can find no rest. Please, if you have mercy, if my blood runs in your veins, release us, from the curse that binds us all. Release us before this too becomes your Fate. '

Elsie looked between the woman’s face the thin blue veins upon her own young wrist, felt the connection form, heard her plea. She looked quickly over her shoulder at Will and found him standing with his back against the Western wall, his shirt torn by the duel and his amulet clearly visible in the bright light of the Star. Kneeling before him, in supplication to the jewel, was the ghost of his ancestor, his sword placed at Charity’s feet in a gesture of surrender.

 _We are the Order,_ said the Star, _The First and Last, the child of the Heavens. Herein lies the Curse which must be broken._

There within the chamber at the heart of the Red Sun, the very First to bear the amulets begged mercy of the Last to wear them. The gifts the Order cherished had become its curse in the greedy hands of man. Healing, Fertility, Long Life and Protection. The Protected who could not die, and the Protector whose soul could never rest.

They were just like Will and Elsie, but destiny had placed them first in the sanctified hereditary lines. The binding spell had kept them ever since, deep underground in the frozen wastes, Protected and Protected, alone with one another, where the sun could never rise. These were the first bearers of the Red Sun and Moon, their tragedy real and human.

Elsie looked down at the crown, forged once centuries ago in the pool in the centre of the room, and decorated with rubies and bright crystals. Decorated with the crystals they wore about their necks and something else, the thing that would end the Order as easily as it had once created it. She looked at Will who followed her thoughts as clearly as if they had been his own. He placed his hand in his pocket and withdrew the star emblem which Ahmes had once worn, which the Star had washed clean of darkness. The missing link in all the Order’s legends.

It glimmered in the chamber, its refractions idling over paintings and murals all about the walls. Standing facing Will across the empty room, viewing him through the golden scrying frame which waited for its task, Elsie was transported briefly to the beginning, of how it must have been. To the love the First had shared and been denied, to their cruel separation by death and time, to the hope that even now they held close when all other hopes had left them, for mercy and for understanding, for freedom and for peace.

Will held Elsie's eye and together from their standpoints East and West, they stepped down towards the pool. The roomed sighed. 

The end was coming.


	43. Chapter 43

Elsie sat on the ground by the circular seat with her back to the bubbling pool and Will at her side. Before them the ghost of the First Protector had remained kneeling, but had taken his place close to the First Protected who remained upon her throne. The scene was as lifeless as any mural and maintained a strange and distant quality, as though they were dreamers or attendants at a play. Elsie imagined the thousands of years the two might have remained in that very pose, chained to their destiny by a Curse that could not overcome their love. All that time, stretching out before them, and they had remained loyal despite the magic that shackled them. Their care for one another brighter than the jewels that they once wore.

‘Do you think they were forced to be apart in life after the binding, and that is why they remain together now in death?’ Elsie asked. ‘I look upon them and I see ourselves. It makes me frightened to think we might never have met one another.’

Will coughed wetly and angled his pocketknife under the crystal in the Red Moon, prying it out of its setting. ‘That would be a romantic version of the horror they endured,’ he agreed, ‘But I rather think they are tied here by the magics the Order put in place rather than the sentimentality of it all. Neither can rest without the other.’

‘Don’t be so cynical,’ Elsie chided, ‘I mean before that, before they were chosen to bear that burden. I think they were in love. I feel it, Will, can’t you?

’I’ve removed my amulet, the subtleties of the Curse are hard for me to read,’ he said and stopped what he was doing for a moment to look up at the pair. ‘But if it is as you say, they’ll be together soon enough, and good for them,’ he added gently.

‘It is strange to think that they are our direct ancestors, that he was just like you,’ she nodded to the man.

‘He lacks my debonair charm don’t you think?’ Will teased. Elsie smiled.

‘But he is Loyal to the bitter end,’ Will conceded, successfully removing the Moon crystal, ‘A thousand years after his death and still he Protects her, gave his life for her in centuries past. Does that surprise you?’

‘It doesn’t, it is exactly what I come to expect from the men in your family, blind faith and unshakable courage,’ Elsie lifted the chain of the Red Sun over her head and handed it to WIll. He hefted it in his hand and held it tight a moment.

‘I never thought I’d hold it, not unless the very worst had happened and yet here we are, ridding ourselves of this burden. It is hard to believe after all this time.’ He brushed his thumb over the crystal. ‘You’re very warm,’ he commented distractedly and Elsie reached out to hold his hand.

‘It is you that is cold,’ she said with concern as she squeezed his icy fingers. Will frowned.

‘I’m quite all right, at least I will be once this is all dealt with,’ he said quietly. He sat still a moment, his pallor draining, his lips dry and cracked until he summoned the strength to slip the edge of his knife under the Red Sun’s crystal. Elsie watched its setting bend under the force as he worked to pry it loose.

‘Is there anything I can do?’ she asked.

Will nodded at the crown, ‘See if that crystal fits while I do this.’

With Will tinkering away Elsie sat the crown upon her knee and experimentally held up the Moon’s shining scarlet jewel to its fittings. The room about them seemed to grow darker, every particle of light descending on the crystal, the finger like clasps springing open in readiness, hungry to consume the magic in her grasp.

‘Oh!’ she exclaimed and a sparkling mist spread forth from the crown which seemed to reach to pull the jewel down to its slot. The fingers gripped and the gem swirled, crimson and gold, blanching clear with the brilliance of diamonds as it changed into a shining silver moon, no longer spoiled with any trace of red.

‘One down,’ Will nodded to himself and passed her the Sun crystal he had detached. Elsie held it gingerly as the crown reached forth again. It turned into a diamond in the shape of the sun, the blood red of the curse lost from its shape, and as it altered Elsie felt something in her give way, as though the boning of a corset had been cinched too tight and only now could she breathe freely. Whatever had been a part of she and Will, whatever tiny shard and passed through the generations, it found itself now inside the crown.

Elsie breathed deeply with a sense of relief and joy, but the feeling soon left her when she checked on Will. In the few minutes which had passed since separating himself from the Red Mon, the damage the Star had inflicted upon his body had accelerated without warning. His face was pale and hair entirely white as he struggled to stand with all the grace of a man in his ninth decade. He caught her worried eye and smiled in reassurance through the new lines on his face, the sword cane bearing the bulk of his weight as he waited for her to perform the ritual.

‘Will, we need to hurry for your sake, What do we do, now?’ Elsie said, joining him before tall mirror of the golden pool.

‘Now we finish this,’ he said. ‘Once that star has been inserted the Three are in theory united but just as they were delivered once unto the earth, we must deliver them back to the heavens.’ He handed her the Star’s emblem. ‘I would take it myself to spare you, but I fear I may not make it all the way. Without the Star and without the power of the Amulet I wore, there is not much left to spare of old Charity. I’m sorry to ask you but, you must finish this adventure, Elsie, for me, and come back safe. You always were the braver of us two.’

Elsie swallowed, unable to trust her wavering voice and let his dry and pallid hand touch her face gently, his eyes growing clouded with years he had not lived, so that her expression was quite hidden to his sight.

‘I will not fail you,’ Elsie said and clicked the star symbol into place on the crown. ‘Your courage has brought us this far. I will finish this, for all of us.’

He looked at her proudly, ‘That’s my girl,’ he said, his balance wavering. Elsie saw the Star come into view beside him, hovering protectively over his bent and painful body.

‘Remember your promise,’ Will said sensing it nearby, and it dipped with confirmation.

‘What promise?’ Elsie said.

‘The promise that the Star would undo the damage done,’ Will said. ‘The same promise it made before we came here. The Star and I have had a little time to speak over the course of our journey, earlier when the Ghost made its appearance. We both of us were ignorant of all the implications here and in Abyssinia, but as the truths behind the Curse became more clear we found some common ground. It has helped us to this chamber, it has kept us safe and I believe we can trust it on this final stage.’

Elsie looked hard at the Star, the longer it stayed in her line of sight the more alien it seemed against a backdrop of broken human lives. ‘There so much damage to be repaired,’ Elsie said, ‘I need your word that those we love will leave this building with their lives intact.’

 _There is limited time and magic,_ The Star said, _upon my release from the Curse I will have only a moment at my disposal before the Sun and Moon remove me from this plane._

‘I want your word!’ Elsie snapped.

 _And you have it,_ The Star assured, _What magic I have left at my command will be given to your needs. I too have a family, I wish no further pain upon yours._

Uneasy despite its declaration, Elsie stood before the pool, her fingers fidgeting with the crown, touching gingerly the jewels embedded in its delicate frame.

‘I feel there ought to be some sort of ceremony,’ Elsie said. ‘Something formal, with chanting or a ghastly sacrifice of goat.’ Will chuckled and stepped forward, leaning heavily on the cane.

‘Well, if it would please you,’ he said clinging to the side of the pool and bracing himself until they could face one another. ’I would be happy to provide that. That is to say the sense of formality, not the blood offerings, although looking at me now, that is not much of a problem either,’ he finished trying to wipe away the worst of his bleeding on his shirtsleeve.

There was a beat and beside him the Star vanished, moving to make itself ready for its escape. She felt a surge of magical power as it retreated within her and the chamber became dark but for the golden forge within the scrying frame. The bubbles rose and burst, the sensation of heat upon their faces.

Will lent one shoulder against the edge of the standing pool and Elsie stood opposite until their profiles were as dark cameos against the swirling gold. She sensed the Star withdrawing slightly, conserving its energy for its journey home and Elsie hesitated with the crown in her hands, fear whispering in her ear where courage had once spoken. But the time for the torment of unseen voice was long over, both for her and for Will. She focused instead on a vision for the future, free of Fate and free of magic and as she let herself dream of what could soon be hers, the pool beside her altered, the gold retreating to the edges of its oval shape and the darkness of the night sky revealed.

‘I need to go in there, don’t I?’ Elsie said.

‘Yes,’ Will said, ‘But the Star will not hurt you, or our baby. It gave me its word.’

‘And what if something other lurks outside or in the heavens?’ Elsie checked.

Will let out a resigned unhappy sigh, his face darkened with fatigue. ‘I wish I could come with you, but I am finished, as weak as the First who haunt this crypt, it shames me that I can barely stand, that I will not see the final moments of this quest. But I believe your next journey to be safe, I sense it. We have come this far despite the Curse, Elsie, you alone now have the strength to end it.’

‘Will! If what you say is true I will return. There is so much more ahead for you and I, for our family. We will see this out and find our way home, we have survived all the Curse has done, we have enough strength to survive the outcome too.’

Will looked at her sadly for a moment and in that beat of time Elsie saw too clearly the damage he had sustained. The family he left behind when he was just a boy, the lover that he lost, the children that he never had. The war that took him far from home and bathed his vision in atrocity, the wounds that left him scared and torn, both in mind and body. And the Curse, the Curse that had led to his fight with Adato and the death of Ahmes, to the nightmares and guilt that followed him for years. All the times he had protected Elsie without her even knowing, and the other times she did, as he defended her from highwaymen, and from the possessed. The broken bones and punctured skin. The poison in his blood. The Star that lived within him all those years, knitting his bones but drinking his vigour, leaving him empty. She looked into his eyes, their sparkle dulled, their focus unsteady and time cruelly creeping over his features with every passing moment.

‘I’m tired, Elsie,’ he said when he was close enough to spot both her confusion and the tears in her eyes. ‘I think you know that.’

‘It’ll get better,’ she said, ‘With the Star’s help, when the Curse is lifted. We will manage, you will manage. You must for the future of our child! Please Will, you cannot give up.’

He did not respond directly but instead took an unsteady pace towards her, holding fast onto her arm lest he lose his balance. While she helped him stand he came close enough as to rest his forehead against hers and breathe deeply of her scent. He smiled, nodding to himself the once and gently kissed her lips. Elsie felt a lump climb to her throat, tasted the salt of her own tears between them, and then he pulled away so slowly that she barely felt his faint and ghost-like caress fade.

‘For what it’s worth,’ Will said in a different braver tone as he cajoled them to the last, ‘I’ve had many an adventure in my life, but this, this has been the most delightful of them all; must have been the company,’ he straightened with some difficulty, pulled his waistcoat neatly and adjusted his top hat.

‘You, see Elsie, you have seen the very worst of me, all the parts I thought you’d loathe, the parts I myself hated that consumed me with remorse,’ Will regarded her with an awestruck smile, ‘And you never shied away. Because of that, the gaps in me I never thought I’d fill, have become the spaces in myself where you will always live. For that, I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for banishing my loneliness and making me complete.’

‘I love you,’ Elsie told him, ‘and all that you describe, you have also done for me.’

Elsie watched his face for a long moment, long enough for her to see his large imploring eyes, the falter in his smile, the sorrow gathering like shadows on his face.

‘Will? Are you all right?’

‘Perfectly,’ he said with a wink and a smile, and pushing himself forward with the last of his strength, took the crown from her to place it upon her head. ’It’s time to go,’ he said, holding it aloft until the molten gold of the pools edge warmed the coronet. ‘Queen Eleanor,’ he winked one last time.

‘Will! No, I’m not ready!’ she cried as she was crowned, as the image of him faded, stepping back into the dark. The scrying pool behind her opened wide; the gold of the pool and the dark of the night mingling into a mist which enveloped her body as Will swayed in the gloom. She called for him in panic, saw the strength go out his legs, his body falling to one side, his face hitting the ground. She felt the cool breeze of the winter night touch her skin as she was taken as he lay motionless below, and Elsie soared far away from the Temple and the Chamber and far away from him.

Perhaps it lasted just a moment but the images of that night would never leave her, for that night was Elsie’s, the culmination of all her strength and her determination, of the long weeks passed, of the fear and uncertainty that had threatened her safety. The crown upon her head, the symbol of the Curse which had chased them, now briefly under her control. Fear left her, panic subsided, faith soothed her soul. She breathed deeply and closed her eyes, felt the magic begin its slow unravel to return to whence it came. The space it left behind soon filling; with the devotion and care that she gave freely, to her husband and his family, to her child and to the Star. Child of the Moon, celestial infant. Without her it would never have understood, the importance of compassion or empathy. In a thousand years it had failed to understand the people who had walked the earth. Until now.

That night every lesson Will had ever taught Elsie came rushing to the fore combined with every quality she valued. The bravery he had found within her, her courage steady and true. The risks she took, her stubbornness and candour, her independence and her willingness to love. She drifted upward and the snow fell all about her, but the chill of ice held life and time suspended. High above the sleeping lands Elsie watched as only divinities can, with infinity of knowledge and omnipotence of presence. The thaw would come and soon but for now the moment was hers.

Sun, Moon, and Star. Bound to her as she soared by the crown upon her head, lending her sight that would not again be hers, that would not be any mans. Freedom had been granted from the earth at last and joy streaked the sky I silver. As she flew a trail of glittering power fell from her, a shooting star turned into a dancing figurine, slowly turning in the heavens. She felt warmth fill her, a taste of pure elation as the Three united and readied their escape, and though the sensation was unworldly, the implications vast, she felt no concern. The celestial beings who had waited so long for their escape, moved carefully around her soul. She was the vessel for their freedom, their representative on earth, but she was stronger than they ever had predicted, and her words and Will’s thoughts had shaped their Star into a being rich in unpractised compassion, into something better than it was; such kindness would bring its own reward, but while that day was still to come the heavens as she scaled them sparkled brightly in thanks.

A sigh caught her attention as far below in the darkness of the Temple, the First Protected reached for the hand of her lover, kneeling still by the ancient throne. He held her, watching over her long delayed and peaceful dying breath, and when the woman at last was free he kissed her hand and faded, slowly like the melting ice, relinquishing his station and his duty and joining her in love, somewhere where they were free to be as they had once been, before the spells and sacrifice, the two of them as one.

Elsie smiled for their happiness and turned to feel the welcome of the Sun and Moon as they reached for their wayward youngest child. She felt their joy for their reunion and sorrow for their separation, the taste of their frustration and their anguish as they had been tied down to the earth. The ill-gotten gains taken from their child, their disappointment in mankind, they wept for long minutes in the blue of the night sky. But time was different to the Gods and time would pass them by. The pain would end and one day they would forget, for this was not their world any longer.

A sense of peace was lulling Elsie almost into sleep, and perhaps it was a dream when the Star, the petulant demanding child, shattered the heavens with its arrival, with its call for attention and the embrace of its parents, but Elsie having carried it, understood it well. It had been afraid and it had made mistakes, gone so far as to be cruel, but in the heavenly realm it was barely born, separated from the beings who would nurture it and teach it kindness. Chained and bound it had been used just as Elsie had, a prisoner of Fate and now it was home, secure within its parents’ bright shining embrace.

Elsie could feel its tears in the frozen rain that fell upon the deep and soundless snow, she could hear the echoes of reunion in the clouds, and then the rush of sunrise came to meet the dwindling moon and hold their Star between them in the half light, the highest point of the heavens. Elsie watched the Star take its place in the mass of constellations and felt it leave her, like a ribbon pulled loose from her hair, the satin slipping softly from her grasp as all the pain it caused her was repaired by something thankful, something humble whom she had taught to care.

The heavens filled again with love, Elsie looked down to the Temple on the Hill, to the barren lands about it. She moved with ease for miles throughout the night, finding landmarks, seeking answers, her brow furrowed under the weight of the golden crown she still wore and her soul quite unable to rest util she saw the world put right. Charity’s world at least, for more than anything she wanted his pain to stop, the long years of misery he interspersed with recklessness, his disregard for himself brought about by the inevitable doom of his Curse. She wanted him to find peace and for them both to lead the life that he was owed.

The Star had not let them down and Elsie smiled through tears as a golden sun was rose over Sherburn and the smoke no longer billowed from the Dead Hall. The first snow of the winter had fallen and the perfect white hid every scar so that it might heal. In the village the doors to Lydia’s establishment were open and early customers leaned against the walls and smoked as they waited. At the back the horses were stabled with full bags of hay and as Elsie looked beyond to the fields she spotted the old caravan, the snow topping its painted roof and a drift half way up its wheels.

Elsie found both Lydia and Sandy, back where they both belonged and let go the memories of their deaths and awful torment. Somewhere, just out of earshot, the child was singing to her mother while she worked, an apron tied about her waist. Lydia kneaded bread upon a table to take down into the market. Just as she did every morning, and just as she would for long and happy years to come. Elsie watched her knead and pound the dough, the flour up to her elbows and smeared across one cheek. She giggled, shoulders shaking, as Sandy emerged from the store and made up new and saucy words for her song, Lydia’s eyes creasing like her brother’s as she bid the child be quiet lest the customers might hear.

At last, all would be well and Elsie felt the truth of it as she parted from the scene, as Sandy’s humming became more distant and the smell of baking loaves faded. The humanity she strove so hard to teach the Star had been a lesson learned. The losses they had felt so keenly were healed, Will’s family saved, and their own child living still. Elsie let go, having seen enough, having embraced certainty and the gift of a shared future with people that she loved. She let herself fall from the heavens, slowly as blossom does upon a breeze in spring, drifting past the world as it was now constructed, finding herself again at the Temple, the golden pool the only source of light as she settled to the ground.

Elsie opened her eyes, her heart skipping with joy and looked out into the gloom of the Temple, the light from the scrying pool so much paler than the Star, the sense of dark and damp creeping in from the rock all about her. Dizzy she kneeled to catch her breath and then made to push up to her feet.

‘Will!’ she called moving forward. ‘Will?’

About her the Temple began to shake, just a tremor at first, a warning sign but soon it grew stronger. The spells which had raised it from the earth were crumbling now like the very stone they had summoned. Elsie glanced at the scrying pool, the last vestige of the Red Sun’s magic, its image fixed on Sherburn as she had seen in moments before, a glorious winter morning filled with life so many miles from where she stood. The pool rippled as she watched it, the image flickering as time ticked down.

‘Will!’ she called louder as the rumbling intensified and dirt and dust poured suddenly in streams from up above, ‘We have to go, now! Will where are you, Will…?’

She stopped, the last light of the golden pool refracting across the chamber, enough to see her goal, enough to confirm he was not moving, sighing, breathing. Just feet from the pool, Elsie fell to her knees by Will’s body, shaking and calling his name, gripping him by the shoulders, clutching him by the hand.

Cold, his skin was cold, his face pale and serene. The cuts no longer wept, the bruises lay dark upon his body. Elsie felt the panic rising in her throat as the first of the debris began to fall in chunks from above her. She shielded Will, her hand brushing against the wound Adato had left in his side, against congealed and clammy blood which trailed down to his breeches. She could not sense if he was living, could feel no heartbeat at his chest. So, she called and called, tried to grasp him under the shoulders with what strength she could.

There was but one way out of the Temple now, as the red granite arches trembled and the painted midnight sky above them fell apart. An almighty crash over to their right caused Elsie to look up, to see the shine of something familiar through the great gap in the curved dome. Its light fell across Will’s body, unnaturally bright.

‘You promised!’ Elsie shouted, ‘You promised him! You promised us! All that we have done for you and this is your repayment,’ but the Heavens remained silent. Elsie looped her arms about Charity once again, dragging him painfully to the pool, to the image of the village they had left behind, to the last place they’d been truly happy and though Will’s body was as lead, though the cold had seeped through every bone, she would not give up. Not now. He could not give up now.

Elsie reached the pool, and stepped one leg backwards into it to secure her passage, her arms straining against Will’s weight, her breath coming raggedly. She would take him to his home if it was the last thing she did, after all he had sacrificed, his happiness, his safety, his life, he deserved to be with his family. He was forced to leave them behind once, and she would not ask that of him again.

She felt the cold on her back from the snow of Sherburn, heard the call of Lydia’s voice and the scream of a child upon witnessing magic in the centre of an early morning village square, and then as the roof of the Temple gave way and Elsie, sobbing, hauled Will’s body through the scrying pool she heard the Star.

 _The Curse is lifted,_ it said, _and that his sister and niece should live again were Charity’s greatest wishes, second only to your safety and that of your child. I have granted all that he requested and left for you this gateway to the happy life you are all owed. Do not be afraid to step through, though you may feel betrayed to find his body cold, I ask you to have faith in your destiny one last time. Love is a gift, and you are more powerful now than magic ever made you._

_Goodbye, Elsie. The Cursed Red Sun has set at last, and while the road ahead of you is hard, trust that the darkest hour always comes, before Dawn._


	44. Epilogue

_...You will of course have many questions, Mama, and I shall do my very best to answer these in the weeks to come, but perhaps if you are able you might consider visiting, now that summer is upon us and we have experienced no further Difficulties. Indeed the last few weeks have been peaceful and we have fallen into a pleasant routine. Our daughter brings us nothing but delight, and where our sleep was once plagued by images of the Cursed dark, I can assure you that we sleep peacefully now, or at least when she allows!_

_Lydia is a frequent visitor to the house, which is of a modest size but equipped with a delightful private garden and views across the meadows. She has been most insistent that she personally bake our breads, pies and sweet stuffs so that we may grow strong after our ordeal. I am first to admit that such culinary adventures are not my strengths despite my ability with potions, and as Will’s tooth has always been rather sweet her contribution is a Godsend. I am also so grateful for the help she gave with the delivery of our little one, as at the time we were still rather cautious of strangers. I must say she feels as much my sister as Will’s now and blessed company out here in the wilds, and of course little Alexandra, or Sandy as she insists upon, is an entertainment in herself._

_Will enjoys her company immensely, and watching his way with her I am confident he will be the very best of fathers. Sandy is a vibrant child to say the least and enjoys his tales and tricks. It is still very hard for him physically, but he is healing and to have a captive audience beyond merely myself is doing him a power of good._

_I have much to attend to but I am only too pleased. My days are divided between swaddling and feeding our tiny baby and applying poultices to my husband’s wounds, but I think back to the dark moments in the Temple when I thought both were lost and I realise I would do most anything to ensure their safety. I am grateful too for the healing skills you taught me which are in daily use and which without any magic of my own to speak of since the Curse lifted, I must rely on entirely._

_Will worries that he can do little to support me and cannot take a job, (all I can do is reassure him that money is a crude topic of discussion and that my arrangement with yourself will keep us). Alas, on a lighter note he also worries that his hair will never regain its natural colour. I had always recognised a certain vanity in William but now I tease him most relentlessly about it. It has darkened a little to a beautiful pewter grey, a little curl of white just at the forehead which he watches with the eye of a hawk lest it spread. I would love him with no hair at all, the silly man._

_I must draw to a close as it its growing late. I can see the sun is dipping below the horizon and Will is still outside taking the air. I do hope to hear from you soon, and please do consider staying with us for a little while, perhaps for the christening when we have a date fixed? Papa will not mind, his focus is ever elsewhere and a girl does need her mother at these times. Will I am certain would love to see you again in happier times. With all of my best wishes and affection,_

_Your faithful loving daughter,_

_Elsie_

Elsie replaced her pen upon the rack and looked out across the garden for a moment before she wended her way through their cosy home and went in search of Will. He very often spent the evenings in a chair or hammock watching the sun set after an afternoon of reading, there being at long last no sense of fear attached to colour of the sky.

The lawn stretched right around the old cottage and until the Charitys had taken the lease had been neglected for several summers. Now the lawn was relatively neat thanks to the help of a boy they gave work to from the village, something Will despaired of mightily as she felt he ought to be doing such domestic tasks himself. Both Elsie and Lydia squashed that idea with speed and begged him stay put, eat well and take his medicine. He still had a way to go before full health, months after his body was pulled from the fading pool, and he often dreamt of the feel of death's cold breath upon his face which Elsie drove away.

To provide a suitable healing draft Elsie spend the latter months of her confinement tending her herbs and directing Lydia on what to dig and prune and when. She mixed tonics and folded and stitched poultices to apply to the wounds Will had gathered in the final days of the curse. She had been so very angry and betrayed as they had returned to Sherburn that day, the scrying pool outside the bakery and Lydia racing to help her as she battled to bring herself into the village dragging Will. The world had been grey and cold that morning until Lydia had found hope in the flutter of a pulse and set about her work; the two women tended Will both night and day for weeks to bring him round.

‘There is nothing,’ Lydia had told her, ‘that love cannot heal, mend or ameliorate, and this man has earned a wealth of love. He was sent home in need of it, because the heavens knew you were his greatest chance, he needs not the Star but you, do not fail him now.’ She had squeezed Elsie’s hand and handed her some linen as she set about working on her brother with bandages and ointments, and for a long time as he lay in silence, faith was all that Charity’s family had or needed.

Now Elsie’s lawns were intersected by neat herb gardens which she had been working on for some months, prior to and after the birth of her daughter. She sampled the scent of lavender as she walked down towards the meadows where the cows were grazing, the odd crunch and soft moo filling the balmy evening. Out here wildflowers grew merrily, and the lawn escaped the hire help. Will seemed to prefer it that way, hidden in the clumps of trees, all of them thick trunked and characterful and with a view across the valley to the hills.

Today as she came around the corner of a thicket she could see that Will had strung up a hammock, an old preference from his time in the army, and was suspended between too strong trees, just a foot or two off the ground. It was a sign that he was a feeling somewhat better if he could negotiate the treacherous swinging material without injuring himself further by falling from one side. Elsie rustled through the long grass to find him and blocked the descending sun to gain his attention. Will squinted up at her with one eye and a hand shading his gaze.

‘Everything all right?’ he asked, adjusting his hold upon their infant daughter who slept upon his chest. ‘Get your letter written?’

‘Yes,’ Elsie remarked pulling a blanket from behind his head and setting it on the ground by the hammock. ‘I’ve invited mama for the Christening.’

‘Do you think she will attend?’ Will asked with hope in his voice, ‘I’d so like to catch up without it being all doom and gloom and family legends,’ he added dramatically. ‘Your father won’t be about will he?’

‘Doubt it, he will be busying himself with parliament, no doubt.’

Will wrinkled his nose at a life of paperwork and talking as Elsie gracefully lowered herself so she could directly at him, her legs folded under her comfortably.

‘She will want feeding,’ she commented.

‘Oh! Of course,’ Will replied, ‘Hungry little tike aren’t you? Here go to mama.’ He passed the baby to his wife. ‘What did you tell her then, about events.’

‘I apologised for our lack of communication,’ Elsie said, ‘Then I gave her the jist but I daresay I have missed rather a lot in my transcription of events.’ She unfastening her bodice, ‘I fear I will upset her terribly if I tell her all.’

‘Especially that last bit,’ Will folded his hands behind his head. ‘It upsets me even now thinking of you finding me like that, thinking me dead. All that you have had to do for me while I have been an invalid these months. I’m William Charity for goodness sake, and I could not even wash myself. Some husband I turned out to be.’

‘Will If you had never left that bed at all you would still be enough for me,’ Elsie said stroking her baby’s cheek.

Will laughed merrily and then flinched as one of his wound nipped him. ‘Don’t you worry I’ll be up and about in no time. You have done a sterling job these last few months, but now this one is with us, I feel the need to pull my considerable weight. Lydia keeps shovelling these pies down me and I’m afraid I shall be enormous by autumn. Idleness is driving me quite mad.’

‘You have borne it with much patience,’ Elsie said dryly.

‘Well it’s not all bad is it?’ Will winked, ‘Not with you by my side, what’s a few broken bones and suppurating flesh wounds! Practically compulsory for a chap like me. How else would I furnish my tales of adventure with delicious detail?’

‘You scared me,’ Elsie admitted in a small voice and saw him soften, ‘I don’t know what I would have done, without you.’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he replied, ‘I can barely get out of my hammock these days, I have to roll out like a steamed pudding, terribly lazy for an explorer don’t you think? Should be out there adventuring.’

‘No more uncalled for escapades,’ Elsie said as the sun dipped below the horizon.

‘Oh, surely one day I can….’

‘No,’ she said firmly and heard Will snort.

They sat a while in their garden. The sky overhead pastel painted in dusky blues and pinks and purple. The summer night not quite falling, the colours deepening but not turning black. The Suns presence just at the horizon and moon rising slowly opposite, translucent with the blues of the sky. And stars, wreathes of stars, bright and shining.

Elsie rebuttoned her bodice and held their chubby baby in her arms, motioning for Will to follow. Slowly he pulled himself up from the hammock, looking nothing remotely like a pudding steamed or otherwise and grasped his cane in one hand, establishing his balance and checking around him for anything he might have left behind. Then satisfied, he slipped an arm about her back to keep her steady on the uneven path and as a family made their way back to the house.

‘If the Christening is approaching don’t you think young Miss Charity should have a name?’ Will asked.

‘I would prefer we do not disagree again,’ Elsie observed, ‘I refuse Wilhelmina.’

He laughed, ‘You pierce my very soul,’ he said.

‘What else did you like?’ Elsie asked. ‘I forget, the child has laid a spell upon me and I have lost my ability to think. Haven’t I my darling?’ she squeezed he infant’s little hands and watched her giggle, ‘Your magic is stronger than any I have ever wielded.’

‘I thought something celestial,' Will said with great enthusiasm, ‘Cressida, that’s a constellation, or Perdita or more simply, Estella?’

‘All three are awful,’ Elsie said.

‘Then perhaps she should take your name, through two Eleanors may be tricky in one house.’

‘Not so. I would prefer she had a pet name for home. I was Elsie rather than Eleanor, and she could have her own pet name.’

‘That seems fair,’ Will agreed. ‘What have you in mind?’

Elsie brought them to a halt just outside the door to their kitchen and took a moment to really look at the man she loved so dearly. She was glad for his smile and glad for the warm colours of the sky upon his face as they told her he was growing healthier and stronger every day. He was the winner of a race he was supposed to lose, but he was healing because of love, both Elsie’s and his daughter’s, whose large blue eyes for him contained the world. Since her birth, a new sun was risen, and all was bright and sweet and new; the darkness far behind in memory alone, wherein it could not touch them.

‘Dawn,’ Elsie said and watched the half smile on Will’s face at the suggestion.

‘How very apt,’ he said and pretended to tip his hat to his little girl. ‘Delighted to meet you, Miss Dawn. Would you be interested young lady in one of my finest tales? I do believe it contains a tiger.’

‘Will! She is but a month old!’ but laughing, Elsie handed him their child and listened to Will’s voice as he began the evening’s tale; a tale which would of course extend right through from bath time unto bed.

‘Once upon a time,’ Will told his baby as they entered the warmth of their home, ‘There was a terribly brave and frightfully handsome; charming and, if you ask me, _world class_ adventurer who went by the name of Captain William Charity…’


End file.
